Library
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Polixeni Papapetrou frames figures that blend into the background
Bronwyn Watson, The Weekend Australian, Review p. 15, 24 January 2015
DEVELOPED by Scottish gamekeepers to protect their lords’ lands from poachers, the ghillie suit has since become popular with hunters, snipers, the army and Call of Duty devotees. The suit, which is camouflage clothing designed to resemble heavy foliage, helps the wearer blend into the landscape. Snipers even have little ghillie suits for their rifles. -
Artists tap into hidden histories
Andrew Stephens, The Age, Spectrum, 8 August 2014, p. 19
The Dreamtime story of the Great Moorool, as related by Healesville historian Mick Woiwod, tells of a great body of water that once filled the Yarra Valley. Were it to exist today, says Woiwod, places like Lilydale, Healesville and the aptly named Mooroolbark would be on the Great Moorool’s shoreline. -
melbourne then, melbourne now, and melbourne’s future
Rebecca Coates, Broadsheet, No. 43.2, Adelaide, pp. 49-52, June 2014
Thus endeth the first lesson. As Melbourne Now drew to a close, we the public were able to reflect on what had been the largest, most ambitious, and most extensive exhibition of contemporary art that the National Gallery of Victoria has ever presented. Running for four months over summer, from November 2013 to March 2014, while not technically a biennale, it had biennale ambitions in its breadth, scale and reach. -
Polixeni Papapetrou, ‘Between Worlds’
Joshua Castle, Ed, Ormond Papers, ‘Curious?, Ormond College, University of Melbourne, 2013, Vol. XXX, pp. 116-131
Polixeni Papapetrou is an Ormond alumna and an artist. Her photographs ask questions about identity and self-awareness. She is based in Melbourne. -
It’s Manet Mania Weekend at Yale!
Robin Cembalest, ARTNEWS, USA, 19 September 2013
On the 150th birthday of Manet’s two most scandalous paintings, a show and a conference track the afterlives of the nudes, the dudes, the maid, and the cat. -
Ladies & Gents
Pantelis Vitaliotis, Ladies & Gents, Greece, interview published 9 September 2013
Growing up in Melbourne in the 1960s as a child of Greek immigrant parents, I felt under pressure to succeed at school and then study at university. As I was not talented at drawing and felt hopeless during art classes as school, I focused on other academic subjects. After leaving school, I studied law at Melbourne University. I began my professional working life as a lawyer in 1985 and continued to practice as a lawyer until 2000. -
Polixeni Papapetrou – A Performative Paradox
Dan Rule, Raven, Published 12 July 2013
To most, the name Polixeni Papapetrou conjures theatrical negotiations of costume, symbolism, childhood and various strains of art history. Hybridised, masked and otherwise mutated characters – often half-animal, half-human – have come to imbue the celebrated Melbourne photo-artist’s recent practice with an intoxicating sense of wonder and intrigue. -
Creep show
Dan Rule, The Age, 29 June 2013, p. 5
A suite of three photographs from Polixeni Papapetrou's Dreamkeepers series skirts both innocence and grotesquery. Pictured against idyllic pastoral backdrops, their protagonists exist between bodies, place and era. Their wrinkled, misshapen masks offset their childlike carriage, petite stature and vernacular fashion. Heather B Swann's ink-on-paper works, meanwhile, continue her spooky, anthropomorphic forms melting between amorphousness, abstraction and figuration. -
Views on the beach, In Paris, With Masks
William Meyers, The Wall Street Journal, New York, 1-2 June 2013, p. A20
Photography exhibitions of Polixeni Papapetrou, Martin Parr and women photo artists in 1920-1930s Paris. -
Polixeni Papapetrou at Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York
Wall Street International Magazine, 16 May 2013
Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, is pleased to present Stories from the Other Side, a solo exhibition of photographs by Polixeni Papapetrou. The exhibition features two of Papapetrou’s most recently completed series, The Ghillies and Between Worlds, and will be her first solo show with Jenkins Johnson Gallery in New York. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, April 4 from 6 to 8 pm, which will feature a discussion with writer and curator Susan Bright at 7 pm. Accompanying the exhibition will be a full color catalogue entitled ”The Ghillies” with an essay by Chris Healy, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. -
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. -
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.