PROMNESIA | MILLY MARTIONOU
By Nikolena Kalaitzaki, Art Historian/Curator
« Promnesia or otherwise Προμνησία. A scientific term which translates the moment into an experience of the memory, the sensation that in present we are currently experiencing what we have already experienced before, because it reminds us of something in which we were once exposed to. And at this moment, it seems as if we face it again into its enchantment, in a condition which literally resembles to an out of place dream world.
Is it a hallucination? Is it a fallacy of the neurophysiological function of the brain? Is it the imprint of a simple similarity spotted between the events which are unfolding in the present and those which we keep guarded into our internal memory? According to Freud, the answer lies in the area of the unconscious phantasy, a place where the known as “day – dreams” are sheltered. It is about our own actual unconscious phantasies which breed Promnesia. The dreams of night and day.
Indeed, there is a peculiar sense of intimacy into this specific reality where conscious and unconscious become one. This encounter desires by its own nature to dare. It exceeds time. It distracts it. Timeless time. Feeling and visual perception become stronger in sight of an image – experience. Revival. Observation. Second perception. The human beings as protagonists of their own lives in a second act. Whatever the past, the present or the future might be; heaped memories. Yet, this particular and so vaguely specific moment breeds a flood of emotions.
Inspired by the allure of this special experience which shares elements from the paradox and the metaphysical, the visual artist Milly Martionou constructs ab initio landmarks of Promnesia. The white surface of her enormous canvas is overwhelmed by the timeless game between memory and emotion.
Strong imprints, the offspring of Abstract Art, inside of whom a new revival is reflected and an expressionist memory is attached. It is the revival itself which during its creation it shrinks itself and bursts out, performing a move from inwards to outwards or in reverse. They are blissful landmarks. They belong to the intense colour of the energy pulse of the constructional rebuilding both in symbolic and in technical level. Oil paints, dripping brushstrokes of clean colours applied one upon another, weaving the embossment of the aspect which is shaped into balance through the chaos of freedom.
Promnesia·
They are beautiful landmarks.
As you witness them, they engross you.
And I wonder, what do they remind you of? »
Milly Martionou