From Another Place
This work is a series of portraits of unauthorized immigrants in Greece, where I have been living since 1993. Because of its position as a border state in the European Union, Greece has received an ever-growing influx of immigrants from many regions in the last few years. Once a completely homogeneous society, Greece is now struggling to accommodate people of different cultures, with all the strains that entails. My own experience of being an outsider throughout my life makes me sensitive to the experience of foreigners. I am moved by the tenacity of immigrants to the goal of a better life, and constantly amazed at how businesses are set up on the margins of society, providing an economic niche to destitute newcomers.
I juxtapose photographic elements with hand-made marks in order to evoke ideas of the new versus the old, and the “real” versus the “ideal”. I use printmaking techniques and layering to refer to a sense of history and change. In repetitive motifs from ancient Greek and Islamic art, I allude to fallen great civilizations and the current destabilization of the status quo. In addition, I render the central figure in a hyper-realist oil painting style, a lengthy process in which the time spent painting minute detail plays an important role in the perception of the piece as a whole.
This work reveals influences from the work of Robert Rauschenberg, John Baldessari, Philip Taafe, and Robert Bechtle, among others.
Mary Cox, January 2009
This work is a series of portraits of unauthorized immigrants in Greece, where I have been living since 1993. Because of its position as a border state in the European Union, Greece has received an ever-growing influx of immigrants from many regions in the last few years. Once a completely homogeneous society, Greece is now struggling to accommodate people of different cultures, with all the strains that entails. My own experience of being an outsider throughout my life makes me sensitive to the experience of foreigners. I am moved by the tenacity of immigrants to the goal of a better life, and constantly amazed at how businesses are set up on the margins of society, providing an economic niche to destitute newcomers.
I juxtapose photographic elements with hand-made marks in order to evoke ideas of the new versus the old, and the “real” versus the “ideal”. I use printmaking techniques and layering to refer to a sense of history and change. In repetitive motifs from ancient Greek and Islamic art, I allude to fallen great civilizations and the current destabilization of the status quo. In addition, I render the central figure in a hyper-realist oil painting style, a lengthy process in which the time spent painting minute detail plays an important role in the perception of the piece as a whole.
This work reveals influences from the work of Robert Rauschenberg, John Baldessari, Philip Taafe, and Robert Bechtle, among others.
Mary Cox, January 2009