Democratic Palestine : 33 (ص 30)
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- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 33 (ص 30)
- المحتوى
-
Uj
The Palestinian Stone
in the Hands of a Greek Painter
The following was submitted to us by Vesna Masharifa, a Yugosla-
vian friend who in the past contributed several short stories to
Democratic Palestine, based on her experience in the Palestinian
camps near Damascus. She now lives in Athens, and sent us this story
after visiting an art exhibition there.
For thirty years, Genovefa Tsatsou
has been exhibiting her art in the
galleries of Athens. At her most recent
exhibition on January 25th, the public
was pleasantly surprised by her large
collection of painted stones, exhibited
together with her paintings, wood carv-
ings and sculptures. The natural beauty
of the stones - their rich contours,
hollows and grooves - had _ been
skillfully used by Genovefa as the
beginning, Mrs. Tsatsou painted por-
traits, happy children, animals and
nature. Then, last year, her inspiration
was drawn towards other issues -
human suffering, people without a
homeland, their dreams and wishes. I
asked her why she changed the themes
of her paintings, and she replied,
«Everything happened so_ quickly,
After a television program about the
uprising in the occupied Palestinian
background for paintings. Here, we
will focus on the artist’s experience with
this new technique.
Genovefa Tsatsou began painting on
stones four years ago. What was new
was her idea of «discovering in the
relief of the stone itself a sketch or star-
territories, I was thinking about the
Palestinian children who fight the
ting point and helping it to become * 4
visible.» The idea occurred to her after y . oe
visiting the Ioanis cave where she was Bis. on, See fig?
fascinated by the artistic perfection . ee Be
achieved by nature. From that day, she — ae
began collecting stones from riverbeds,
roads, mountains and beaches. She
chose stones whose contours provided a
dynamic relief, discarding the flat ones.
After observing the stones under a
strong light in her studio, she began to
trace their lines and grooves. What the
stone didn’t offer, the painter had in
her fantasy, and this is how the pain-
tings were created. Genovefa never
changes the basic color or shape of the
stone. She says, «I must admit that it
was very difficult to paint on an already
formed, colored and grooved stone. My
freedom of expression was so limited
that at one point I thought that the
stone had already created its painting,
and I was only there to make it clear.»
Actually, it was not like that. In the
30
Israeli occupation with stones. In my
mind, these stones were part of a huge
historical mosaic, made in honor of the
Palestinian people and their struggle.
All of a sudden, I related those stones
to my work. I started to feel a stronger
need to paint about the common pro-
blems of people all over the world, who
live under occupation and in exile. As
the concept of nostalgia is very close to
me, I started to paint people without a
homeland and their nostalgia.
NOSTALGIA FOR HOME
Mrs. Tsatsou was born in
Macedonia, in a small town called
Naussa. At 18, she came to Athens to
study art and has lived here since. Even
though she occasionally visits Naussa,
she lives with nostalgia which can be
seen in her paintings which always
convey memories of her hometown.
«Although I have lived in Athens for 30
years, Naussa is always in my thoughts.
I paint the houses, flowers and people
from my town with deep nostalgia. My > - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 33
- تاريخ
- يونيو ١٩٨٩
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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