Olga Barmazi is an artist capturing the world with generous inspiration, inviting the viewer to explore the multidimensional aspects of visual perception and the human soul. With endless freshness, she creates compositions that transform everyday life into a continuous improvisation, offering unique experiences that beckon the soul to dance to the powerful rhythm of art.

Barmazi’s visual language comprises biomorphic forms that redefine the way we perceive reality. Her experimental approach, predominantly formalistic, challenges the boundaries of visual perception. In recent years, Barmazi has focused on a series of works titled “Flows and Fragments.” This series primarily features paintings where fluid forms, dots, and patterns with geometric abstraction create compositions that seek to capture the synesthesia of images as perceived through vision and experience, whether individual or collective.

At the core of these compositions, the interplay of black and white, though becoming rarer, serves as a scenic background. As the artist’s progression nudges her towards the spectrum of colour, it’s executed in a more disciplined manner compared to the exuberance often seen in this genre in Greece. While the “explosions of colour” are somewhat absent, the use of materials like watercolour and India ink on paper, oil on canvas, and attached elements such as aluminum foil, enable the artist to explore and depict the stark contrasts and transformations inherent in her work.

A significant aspect of Barmazi’s work lies in her belief that visual perception results from both the physiology of human vision and the imagery of images. In this context, the artist delves into the role of the mind in processing visual stimuli, attempting to capture how the eye sees what the brain permits, and how that affects our perception.

In her works, Barmazi utilizes automatic gestures originating from initial sketches, simultaneously incorporating elements of improvisation. This gestural painting process yields the rhythm of life and the occasional emotional pulse, akin to an impromptu dance on paper. Barmazi avoids conscious interventions and corrections, allowing the initial result to guide her. If the final image takes on an aesthetic form and “narrates” a micro-story, she then “signs” it; otherwise, she either discards or leaves it for future analysis. Equally crucial are the textures that infuse vitality into her works. Barmazi draws inspiration from constructivism and cubism, borrowing elements emerging from the textures of her artworks. The contrasts and transformations arising from this combined approach to colour and texture intensify the impact and resonance of her pieces.

–Paris Kapralos
Art Curator