In-Situations Catalogue Essay

Ιn the catalogue of Eleni Mylonas'  Journey Through Ellis Island, the series of photographs shown in Athens and New York in 1984, she talks about the "passage of countless souls," time, the transformation of matter in the process of decay. In her Universal Salvage series she deals with  similar issues focussing on the relics of people's lives in auto graveyards. In these early works Mylonas strives to capture the imprints left behind by man and to preserve them.  "Brainstorming" the installation presented here is the first work Eleni Mylonas has created in Greece after many years of life and work in New York.  Mylonas has worked with photography,  video,  sculpture, painting, installation. She followed a course involving several notable leaps in her artistic output (geometry, mathematics) which may have led her back to earlier, primordial concerns.  In this work she goes back to her deepest roots, confronts the global anxieties of the 21st century and dreams up a gathering of representatives, "heads" that come together to solve problems common to all. At the outset, although they are all "of the earth" facing equal threats, they each remain in their own bucket, with their own agendas. But eventually communication becomes possible through water. While working Mylonas noticed that a head immersed in water comes to life, assumes color, attains another dimension. A relationship develops between matter and water. When the stone absorbs water its substance is transformed, it acquires presence. In some metaphysical way the image comes to life. There is a kind of surprise and a mystery in the process. Despite being disparate - in keeping with surrealism's dictates - the head and the bucket with water serving as a life-giving catalyst interact with one another forming an environment of their own. The  galvanized buckets awaken the memory of childhood, at a time before the advent of plastic, which is in the roots of Mylonas. The bucket is a sturdy material that ages beautifully in contrast to the plastic. The material for the sculptured heads is a variety of stones found in nature in Mylonas' estate on Aegina Island. Guided by their original shape, Mylonas carves faces on them. She places them in a similar environment, brings them to life with water and  "puts their heads together" as peers to "brainstorm" -as the title goes- on ideas and matters of grave importance . This installation came together in a playful spirit, without any feel for embellishment. The bodiless heads  read as fragments of sculpture from antiquity naturally occurring in an archaeological site but which can also be present in less likely places. Mylonas' description: "you may be walking along and you bump onto a head" summarizes the simplicity of the work as an accidental yet natural occurrence. And she continues: "if you come across a group of heads such as this, it is obvious to me that they are in conference".

Megakles Rogakos, In-Situations Exhibition Catalogue.