Barbara Papadopoulou



Copyright 2010

Matryoshka


Lambda prints and prints on banner, 2009
Solo Exhibition, Stattbad Wedding, Berlin,
October 2010


read Bounded Spaces by Penelope Petsini


Matryoshka is a project focused on the pregnant body as a place where the perishable meets the eternal, where mortality embraces the continuous repetition of the being, where History is being connected to Timelessness ("Zeitlosigkeit").


The pregnant body is seen as the eternal ark of being; as an ark travelling through Time, carrying with it, and in it, all questions, all anxieties, and all joy of Life: within a nutshell, the whole fate and history of humanity. Like the Russian Matryoshka doll it betrays the existence of something else within it –no less than both past and future. It is a "dwelled body" where Power and Fragillity coexist. In its round shape a zen way of being is depicted –a patient, slow, and receptive one- illustrating the female way of being in the world as opposed to the male one –the fast, competitive, conquering way of being. Strictly staged frontal postures alternate with more playful scenes tinted with reserved eroticism, most notably the one inspired by, and alluding to, both the Holy Trinity and the Three Graces motifs.

160 x 240cm, print on banner