In Irini Iliopoulou’s latest works, animals inhabit the wilds of her imagination. Here we behold the embodiment of her ‘inner farm’ [a variant on the ‘inner child’ = ‘το παιδί µέσα της’/‘το εσωτερικό παιδί της’]. From her canvases placid cows cast the viewer a sideways glance wary of our carnivorous cravings. Indeed, Irini Iliopoulou has been observing bovines for decades, famously presenting a series of cow portraits at the 1990 Salon de Mars in Paris with the Berggruen Gallery. Throughout her career, she has drawn from her menagerie but usually in a sleight-of-hand – partially concealing or camouflaging animal creatures in her landscapes and tableaux, a game of hide-and-seek. But starting in the summer of 2021 she began modeling miniature animal totems in clay on the island of Kassos and ended up sculpting her own ceramic bestiary (included in exhibition & present catalogue) that she subsequently incorporated into her paintings. At the same time, she found herself revisiting some of her earlier compositions – favorite settings and scenes she wanted to re-enter thus she reappropriated these works to introduce her creaturely companions. In this way, familiar faunae are featured in unaccustomed places, as Irini ‘rewilds’ a vacant lot on a city street with a brigade of feathered friends – chickens, roosters, ducks, geese. The eponymous dairy cow Bella stands in front of a wall graffitied with primitive masks that accentuate her gentle demeanor.
“The road is full of cool springs and shady trees, the great and swollen rivers are now calm, the fruit trees are laden with their harvest, the plains are covered in fresh grass for the herds of animals, the flowers are in full bloom and the birds sing joyfully.”
Thus wrote Manuel Palaiologos in a letter describing the spring of 1407 (Epist. 45.161–208).
[*Six Byzantine Descriptions of Works of Art*, ed. P. Agapitos, Agra Publications]
The artistic community of animals in Irini Iliopoulou’s work symbolizes humanity’s quest for a supreme, unpretentious innocence in life. Here and now, it is not the dreamlike wonder emerging from nature’s mysteries that delivers the message, but nature itself—alive and vivid—captivates us with its truth, with its utterly realistic presence. Through this presence, it tells its story and expresses a passion for the continuity of its existence in a manner that is, without a doubt, masterfully rendered.
