Nancy Elsamanoudi
My work investigates the tension created in the merging of culture and nature, as well the relationship between the primal and the civilized. My work plays with notions of contingency, fragmentation and continuity. In my work, I explore ideas of veiling and unveiling, concealing and revealing, masking and exposing.
In my paintings and drawings, I work with a visual vocabulary that incorporates geometric shapes with curvilinear lines, calligraphic elements, biomorphic and suggestively figurative forms. My process is intuitive and the forms that emerge are often ambiguous. Painting, for me, is about fluidity, plasticity, and a play of possibilities.
My paintings combine painting and drawing techniques. I use an oil stick to draw with on either a blank canvas or a surface that has already been heavily layered with paint. The composition often changes quite a bit during the painting process. And although I do draw a quite a bit, I do not begin with preparatory sketches.