Library – Press Articles

  • Greek goddess of Australia: Polixeni Papapetrou

    Jean Paul Gavard Perret, Ragazine, Vol. 12 No. 4

    Ten years ago Polixeni Papapetrou was a victim of a stupid controversy in her country. The pretext was that she photographed her daughter (six-years-old) nude. It was to understand nothing that Polixeni Papapetrou explores. Mainly the theme of the transformation and processing from childhood to adolescence, from adulthood to old age. Her experience of the disease made her even more susceptible to the fragility of the life. The beauty remains the essence of her women’s vision. The creator fights for the freedom of the women and of her own work. The Australian knows how to create a very particular “romanticism”. In the lyric which dissipates the intelligence she prefers the latter while remaining capable of offering feelings. They allow her to take the plunge of past in the present and towards the future, which the work announces subtly within its particular ceremonial.

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  • Polixeni Papapetrou photographs youth, beauty and blooms

    Ella Rubeli, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 August 2016

    Artist Polixeni Papapetrou likens human mortality to the life cycle of flowers: subject to seasons of growth, blossoming, and – inevitably – wilting. Her latest series is so dazzling in beauty and colour that you can sense its imminent ruin. Young women, almost suffocated by garlands of flowers in their "garden of Eden" are suspended in a moment of youth.

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  • The Elvis cult: photographs of the star’s enduring fans

    Ella Rubeli, The Age, Melbourne, 25 June 2016

    Each year on August 16, a throng of faithful mourners gather in Melbourne cemetery to commemorate the death of their idol: Elvis Presley. They are dressed in leather jackets, some with their hair greased back, most with large bunches of flowers, striking sultry poses in worship of the American star. It was 1985 when photographer Polixeni Papapetrou first encountered this annual ritual and was drawn to document the near-religious-scale cult.

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  • The Art of Dying

    Dylan Rainforth, The Age, p. 46, 8 September 2015

    Invited artist Polixeni​ Papapetrou​ has a closer relationship with the idea of mortality than most, having being diagnosed with terminal cancer almost three years ago. "She wanted something positive," Cass says, "and she's made a beautiful, contemplative series using flowers as well as a very iconic image of [her daughter] Olympia."

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  • Fiction coated truth pill presented

    Dylan Rainforth, The Age, p. 40, 24 June 2015

    Aboriginal culture is based in oral tradition, with Dreamtime stories passed on just as memories of colonial injustices are. It makes sense then for an Australian exhibition to look at history, memory and identity through the frame of storytelling.

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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.

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