Athanasia Androutsopoulos
Athanasia recently graduated from Gray's School of Art, where she
graduated in printmaking. Below she explains more about her work.
'In my degree show pieces I explored imaginary cityscapes, chaotic but cute.
I created an entire world that took inspiration from Japanese arcades and
videogames, old Nintendo imagery and also contemporary artists such as
Takashi Murakami and Aya Takano. My intention was for people to be able
to walk into my degree show space and imagine/pretend they are not in
Aberdeen at all, but instead a space version of 80s Japan, filled with
intergalactic space destroyers and panda-shaped killing machines.
Japan is a big influence in my work not so much because of the place itself,
but because of the Japanese preoccupation with all things cute and
childlike, what the Japanese call 'kawaii'. This same childlike aesthetic
is also prevalent in the art of contemporary Finnish artists, illustrators and
cartoonists and thus a great influence in my art. I want to use imagery and
patterns from things that do exist and create something new and almost
surreal from these existing patterns: Scandinavian tradition, archaeological
finds, patterns from Greek pottery etc. (I am half Finnish, half Greek, and
have spent many years in Scotland - very international!)
At some point I was hoping to incorporate animation into my work, at this
stage, however, I am more interested in breaking down the story into
panels, into various prints that do eventually come together as a whole.
Lately, I have been influenced by 80s robot anime, glam rock, 70s superhero
comics and the song 'Go home, Pandatron' by Finnish band I was a teenage
satan worshipper.
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