Maria Pavledis
smokework, prints, installations, collaborations
My work explores the sensory and emotional interconnections and interdependence between humans and other animals, and a wider sense of patterns and forms in nature which I approach through a way of working for which I have borrowed the term ‘sensitive chaos’* This term strongly resonates with me the experience of making artwork, intuitively following an unknown path, traversing grounds of fragility and power, sometimes, playing on the edges of destruction, finding new ways of marking the way and inheriting others from fellow travellers.
*Sensitive Chaos is a book by Theodor Shwenk about Flow Forms in air and water
Images are made through combinations of methods, primarily printmaking including recent techniques of steam printing using plants and their dyes, and through ‘Fumage’ using smoke to create an image. I developed this method from a process in etching called ‘smoking the plate’ where the metal place is blackened with a candle before an image is drawn on. In my work I use the smoke as a co – creative medium and work with its own flow forms and patterns to build an image. It is a technique linked to both surrealist ideas of accessing the unconscious and, more widely, smoke has a ritual and magical significance.
Aether is a collaborative multi media performance between artists Cat Jones ( biosonic plant sounds ) Marian Saunders (Light projections) and Maria Pavledis ( live drawing and drawing with fire ) . We have also recently worked with soprano singer Jillian Bain Christie. These images by Alistair Vaughan Jones capture a recent performance (9th March 2025 ) at Norwich Arts Centre as part of the Tilted Women festival
shop artwork
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