Fourteen of my water/sea photographs are being exhibited for sale at the American Embassy until the end of October 2013. They are exhibited in the embassy's media/conference room. The exhibition is titled Sea in Your Self. Unfortunatly I wasn't aware that the exhibition is only open to embassy employees, but I've posted pictures so you can have a glimpse...Please contact me if your interested in purchasing :)
SEA IN YOUR SELF
Artist Easel Program, U.S. Embassy, Athens, Greece
The natural element of water conveys a particularly
strong pull within me. I feel that water
is a symbolic reflection of the female self.
Water remains itself even though it can be many different forms. For example, a stream is flowing and fluid,
it can move around rocks gently, easily, but with persistence. It doesn’t let anything get in its way-it
finds a way around it gracefully. A
woman to the core remains herself, but will have many sides of her personality
and mood that can take many forms like water.
These actions of the water are representative of how a feeling or mood
can feel inside to me and I capture that in a photograph.
Recently in my artwork, I’ve been revisiting a recurring
theme that I enjoy playing with. The
classic concept: it’s not what you see on the outside that is important it’s
what on the inside that counts. The sea
lends itself well to this concept for me.
As a whole it will always be the sea.
One step deeper, and on the surface it’s constantly morphing into
shapes, splashes, bubbles, droplets, foam, spray and waves. One can form their own opinions on how they
react to it or their eyes perceive it.
But once you explore below the surface it’s a whole new, beautiful,
deep, world inside. The sea is like our souls, it has depths that we will be
forever exploring. I’m not interested in
photographing fish and corals to relay my theme. Instead to show the depth, or the inside as
I’ve said it, I use the shapes, reflections, bubbles and colors which I see
that nature has presented to me. It’s
these multiple layers of the sea that suggest what is within.
Melissa studied at Youngstown State University in Ohio
and majored in Visual Art and Multi-Age Licensure in Art Education. She received a Bachelors of Science in
Education, and taught high school Art I for one year before moving to
Greece. She is particularly drawn to the
sea saying, “ The sea is inviting, clear,
clean. It’s amazing the depth it holds
and the distance I can see into it. It’s
mesmerizing and meditative. I can watch
it for hours, noticing the patterns and reflecting shapes, feeling the rhythm of the tide, listening to the crashing, splashing, and bubbling
on the shore. It’s alive. It’s moving energy. I am centered there, relaxed, at peace.”
Melissa Acierno-Vlahos
Athens,
Greece
September
2013
