Library – Interviews
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The Kids Are Alright: Polixeni Papapetrou Mixes Costume, Camouflage and Child’s Play
Chloe Wyma, Blouin ArtInfo, New York, interview published 11 April 2013
In her romantic and unnerving photographs, Australian photographer Polixeni Papapetrou transforms childhood into the stuff of fairy tales. Inspired by the theatricalism of 19th-century photographers Julia Margaret Cameron and Lewis Carroll, Papapetrou uses costume to toy with the representations of childhood, picturing her two children — Solomon and Olympia — as fiddle-playing horses, spirit creatures, mourning rats, and weeping clowns. -
A courageous woman: Polixeni Papapetrou
Alison Kubler and Louise Martin Chew, ihaveonlygotfiveminutes, Interview, posted 7 May 2013
We’ve met many courageous women in our lives, but in terms of grace and forbearance it is hard to envisage anyone on a par with artist, photographer, mother and wife Polixeni Papapetrou. She is our first interview for this new blog and we thank her for being part of it, being herself, and for her honesty. -
An Interview with Polixeni Papapetrou
Amada Schapiro, Two Serious Ladies, Posted 2 March 2013
The daughter of Greek immigrants, Polixeni Papapetrou is an Australian-born photographer whose work has received international acclaim. She left her job as a lawyer when she was 41 to devote herself to photography, and since then she has produced a sensitive and visionary body of work. Papapetrou’s two children, Olympia and Solomon, are the subjects of many of her photographs, often appearing in various states of disguise. In what she describes as a collaborative effort, they create images that are often described as dreamlike, surreal, and theatrical. -
Polixeni Papapetrou, The Wanderer 3
Caia Hagel, The Believer, San Francisco, Issue 95, January 2013, pp. 35-37
For over a decade, Polixeni Papapetrou has been engaged in an intimate photographic collaboration with her children and her children’s friends, and has gained international recognition for her ability to contemplate the childhood imagination. Her art is a contrapposto of drama and interiority. Its physical creation involves a diligent trawling of charity shops, garage sales, and eBay auctions in relentless search of the perfect costume, and long drives to magical places in nature in search of the perfect set. -
Stories from the other side: Polixeni Papapetrou exhibits at Jenkins Johnson Gallery, NYC
Caia Hagel, The Believer, 29 April 2013
Australian photographic artist Polixeni Papapetrou, whose Process interview was featured in January 2013’s issue of the Believer, has tantalized her international following for years with haunting, otherworldly imagery recapturing, recasting, and recreating childhood reverie. In her most recent exhibition, a solo show on till June at Jenkins Johnson Gallery in New York City, Papapetrou has combined chimerical pieces from Between Worlds, where pondering animalistic creatures splash out from their natural landscapes loud with feeling, with pieces from her latest series, The Ghilies, where animalism has retreated into something subtler and more spiritual.