My work refers to social and political issues, cultural practices and normalities. Using metaphorical speech instead of an archival approach, I trace entrenched social and political views with the ultimate aim of commenting on them by illustrating and deconstructing them. I explore issues like the confinement of contemporary individual, the politics of gender —and particularly the female gender— identity, social and family structures, the dynamics of power, the image of the Self and the Other.

The self is employed as an iconographic model, and the autobiographical element serves as a springboard for exploring the Other. A typical trait in my work is the use of objects which are fetishised. Freudian symbols like a punch bag, a razorblade or a dish sometimes appear as secondary elements of the composition and sometimes assume a leading role, gaining autonomy through the new meaning attributed to them.

The setting for most of my videos and video-performances is the aesthetically neutral, blank space of the studio so as to reinforce the metaphor as well as the sense of the unfamiliar, the ambiguity of signs and moods which are all typical of my entire work.

Eva Marathaki