For over 20 years Greek-American artist Triada Samaras has been exploring the themes of identity, house/home, voice, and geography in her artwork, often in art activist and socially engaged contexts in New York City and Athens, Greece that have won her national and international recognition. Her recent exhibitions include: Triada Samaras: Unbound: Paterson Museum and Greek Women: Then and Now, Howe Gallery, Kean University .
Samaras is a studio artist working in Brooklyn where she creates personal, emotional, intuitive and idiosyncratic interpretations of these themes in paintings, drawings and sculptures. These works often feature her poems and writings.
Originally educated in Fine Art at Smith College, Northampton, and the Museum School of Fine Art in Boston, MA, Samaras has also completed graduate work in art, art education, and interdisciplinary art at Columbia University, New York, and Goddard College, Vermont. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of Drawing and Fine Art at Kean University and Art and Art Education at William Paterson University.
Statement:
I am an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York all my adult life. These days I use mainly pencil, charcoal, archival ink pens, watercolor, and acrylic on a variety of surfaces, including paper and canvas. I especially like drawing with archival pens on smooth, Bristol paper. In this medium, I am interested in cross-hatching and other techniques to obtain the darkest blacks I can. While pen and ink can be unforgiving, I enjoy the challenge and permanence of the ink lines upon the drawing surface.
When using paint, I prefer to use oil. If ventilation is an issue where I paint, then I use water-based oils which I have become accustomed to overtime. I prefer to work on stretched canvases but have also experimented on several unstretched canvases and large cloths.
Many of my artworks begin as abstraction. Gradually the images and text emerge from the work as I proceed. I am an intuitive artist and aim for a natural and spontaneous experience with each artwork as I create. I rarely begin with a pre-conceived notion of what the work will look like when it is completed. I am more interested in the process and in combining the materials and ideas in a fluid manner, allowing these to transform the original marks and colors. I am inclined to let the final image emerge on its own rather than to force an idea upon the materials.