Interview: Maria Stamati
Luca Curci talks with Maria Stamati, one of the winners of ARTIST OF THE MONTH – DECEMBER 2020.

She was born in Amphilohia at 1962. She studied privately next to Rune Bergstrome (professor of school of Fine Arts in Getteborg, Sweden), in atelier of M. Veloudios too and for short time, next to K. Niarhos. She has presented 20 personal exhibitions in Greece and abroad and has taken part in more than 85 group exhibitions. She has published 6 collections of poems. Her essays and texts on art have been published in various cultural and literary magazines. She has created covers of a lot of books. Her poems have been translated into English, German, Polish and Czech. She has been awarded prizes for her work 6 times. She lives and works in Athens.

Luca Curci – What are you currently working on?
Maria Stamati – I am finishing artworks for two solo exhibitions for 2021, one in Athens and the other in Rome

LC – What is art for you?
MS – Art is the process that illuminates whatever is worth to concern us and give us the opportunity even as artists or as an audience to come in contact with multiple levels of reading of reality as also with our inner state.

LC – What is the most challenging part about creating your artworks?
MS – It is the difficulty to be expressed as much as precise and multilevel in the depiction of the cause of the artwork, working with the “tools” of art language.

LC – Did your style change over the years? In which way?
MS – Depending on my concerns I want to express in each artwork I use beside painting more elements; materials or way of performance. This is how installations, video and recent years threads got in my artworks.

LC – How is being an artist nowadays?
MS – Artist is person that works hard, has concerns and tries, in his own way to make people to worry; protest, illuminate the dark parts, to keep track on what is going inside and around us, so as we can see and decide if we want and what to change or improve… as also that it is hard to live of his work.

LC – What is your creative process like?
MS – Regarding things that concerns me or facts, that always am aware of, I start by drawing and righting down thoughts. I deliberate the most clear and detailed way which can be expressed and during the process of construction of the artwork I may change something.