Andreadis, Efi. Catalogue Essay from "QUASI PERIODIC SPACE" Ileana Tounta Contemporary, solo exhibition, 2000


Ever since the early 'heroic' years of photography a century and a half ago, many of those captivated by this 'mechanical' way of recording the surrounding world and everyday reality have been experimenting with and developing different methods of broadening their visual perception and expressing a more complex perspective. So what was originally an 'exact' description underwent so many manipulations and alterations that it ultimately became antagonistic to the idea of an 'existing', permanent and definite view of reality.


With the passage of time and with technological progress, photographers continued to experiment with odd exposures, unusual lighting, intentional blurring of detail or background, cuts, collages and blow-ups, within and beyond the limits of the frame. From its very beginnings the art of photography coincided with parallel movements in the other visual arts. Several of the leading figures of Post-Impressionism, and later of Surrealism, Dadaism and Abstraction, were themselves photographers. Throughout its history, photography has not ceased to transcend mere reflection and explore new perceptions of the outside world. 


Eleni Mylonas, as we have come to know her through her work, functions as a sensitive receiver and skillful manipulator of images. She moves, acts, and creates within this difficult and ofter perilous region where reality is revealed, defined and at the same time cancelled. Her mastery of the medium has never led her to facile solutions or dazzling effects that would betray her dedication to understanding and broadening the visual possibilities and the intellectual extensions of photography. Beginning with her unique thematic choices culminating in a group of integrated images in the Ellis Island series, continuing with the imaginatively focused details of Universal Salvage and the increasingly decisive interventions of Fragments, she arrives at the monumental three-dimentional compositions of Space Odyssey and, finally, at her recent series works Quasi Periodic Space


What all her work has in common is an end product, whether it is a single image, a fragmented composite, or a three-dimentional construction, that is always structured, autonomous and deliberate. Through her image-making choices and up until their conclusive accession within a conceptual cycle, Mylonas does not cease to explore and dissect her personal relationship with the aspect and the meaning of the world around her. The exploitation of this world has always stemmed from her inner need to reclassify its existing order, and, transcending the impulsive participation of the actual exposure, to focus on the flow which separates, connects and constantly alter the structures of shapes projects through the image. 


After her obvious references to abstraction, to surrealism intensity, to conceptual insights and the monumental compositions, she is now, in the series Quasi Periodic Space, attempting through the rational grid she imposes on her material not only to fragment the inner order of the image but to suggest an infinite number of visual solutions which, however, follow a basically simple strategy and lead to an ultimately gratifying reading. Here the fragmentation and the reordering of the image do not alter the character and the texture f the original visual nucleus. 


Through moving within the confines of the contemporary postmodern world, Mylonas is proposing a final image, which despite its ambiguous nature is recognizable. She achieves this through a procedure dictated by totally structured will, a precision of perception and a wise sense of scale, elements that ensure the presence of the work in space. I can anticipate, once inhabited by her works, will alter in significance. 


Efi Andreadis, Art Critic, A.I.C.A

Athens, February 2000