11 Dec MELITA EMMANUEL – Professor of the Architectural School of NTUA
Alice Tournikioti’s painting may be divided into three periods, the period up to 1988, from 1988 up to approximately 1996-7 and the period from 1997 to date. As often happens with artists, the dividing lines between these phases are not absolutely clear and very often artistic matters occupying her return like an obsession seeking their implementation in different ways.
The period from 1978 up to 1988 features her first enthusiastic efforts to depict natural reality, her exploration of and experiments in the matter of how to depict space. Her themes are flowers, still life, interiors and female figures, where her passion for colour and the way she analyses it are evident. The portraits of this period are images of girls, where an effort to depict a sculpted effect in the faces is made through the use of colour.
In the second phase from 1988 to approximately 1997, which could also be called the experimental phase, the artist, availing herself of her experience, proceeds to depict interiors and human forms with greater dynamism. The observation of nature has ceded its place to the sensual and often instinctive depiction of visible reality.
Finally, over recent years, Alice Tournikioti, in her maturity now, appears to have settled into a clearly personal visual formulation. Her subjects – female figures and interiors – are dealt with in a particular way, in which the dominant elements are sensuality, elegance, exoticism, supported by strong colors. A feature of the work now, is the use of canvases of large dimensions. Her charcoal drawings done either with the object of transferring them to oil, or else based on already existing works in oil, are of particular significance. The latter have started to give a sculpted impression, as if they were ready to escape the flat surface and change into three dimensional forms in space.
