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Photo Credit: Antonis Ricos
Maro Vandorou is a visual artist of Greek origin, who is living and working in California. Her formal training has a strong interdisciplinary character informed by studies in the visual arts, interaction design, literature, psychology, digital and computer technologies. Her work explores the process of transformation through installations of original photographic material, writings, and artists’ books. Her tools of choice are film cameras, Gampi – a rare Japanese handmade paper – and platinum–palladium printing. The setting of images and the visual vocabulary of abstract concepts [grief, surrender, purification of intent, transformation] reference symbols and archetypes from her Hellenic roots. The installation concepts reflect on fragility, impermanence, vulnerability. Vandorou’s work is in private and public collections across the United States and Europe, including the Library of Congress, The Getty, Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece.
We talked about Vandorou’s installation Vertical Time and the intriguing way it is installed, so that the images flutter as viewers interact and move by them. Click through and scroll to the bottom of the page to watch a video of the images, projected on silk panels within echoes of spoken words of poems.
Kubota-san makes the Sekishu Torinoko gampi that Vandorou uses extensively for her installations of “Fragmented Light” “Vertical Time” and her book “Persephoneia”. Here we see his assistants looking at the platinum print from the back.
Persephone’s Chamber explores impermanence and fragility through images, letterforms and materials. Scroll to the bottom of the page at the link to see a video. I created three types of abaca paper for this book.
We also discussed the watermarks that Gangolf Ulbricht created in the paper for Vandorou’s A Book of Whispers.
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Maro Vandorou’s recommendations:
- Vanderou purchases her chemicals for platinum/palladium printing from Bostick & Sullivan
- Her favorite papers are from:
- She acquires her parchment & vellum from William Cowley
- Her favorite calligraphy, gold leaf and gilding materials come from L. Cornellissen & Son
- She works with two binders:
Visit Atelier Vandorou to learn more about her work. You can also find her on instagram @atelier_vandorou
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Music featuring excerpts of Makin’ Paper folk song by Peter Thomas. Listen to the full song and find out about other paper and book arts folk songs.
Gary A. Hanson did the sound editing for this episode. He practices and refines his skills in audio production while making his own podcast I’ll Have a Beer and Talk, a show about tech news, culture, weird animal stories and of course, beer. Gary is also the Deckle in Pulp & Deckle, a Portland-based community hand papermaking studio.
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