Library
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Polixeni Papapetrou: The Ghillies
Dan Rule, The Age, Melbourne, April 6 2013, p 5
There's a quietness and subtlety to Polixeni Papapetrou's latest series of photographs – a softening of the more theatrical employment of costume and symbology that has come to mark her negotiations of childhood, fantasy and art history. Where she has long juxtaposed her hybridised characters – often half-animal, half-human – against picturesque landscapes, The Ghillies are of a different ilk and a different land. -
Between Worlds
Unless you Will, Issue 25, March 2013, pp. 56 – 73
Australian artist Polixeni Papapetrou has gained international recognition for her thoughtful photographs that contemplate the childhood imagination. For over a decade she has been engaged in an intimate photographic collaboration with her children and their friends. As they have grown and transformed so too have the roles they perform and spaces they inhabit intersecting with the boundaries of time, history and contemporary culture. -
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. -
The Final Frame in a bold body of work
Gina McColl, The Age, Melbourne, 19 January 2013, pp. 16-17
ARTIST Polixeni Papapetrou was told in October that she was free of the breast cancer that was discovered in 2007. She celebrated the five-year all-clear by buying new clothes and tickets to the Francis Bacon exhibition in Sydney. A month later, sudden and severe symptoms sent her to hospital. She was told the cancer had returned in her peritoneum - the lining of the gastrointestinal tract - and that it was terminal and untreatable. -
Polixeni Papapetrou: Révéler les apparences masquées
Alexis Jama-Bieri, CLGB Open Art Revue, Issue 22, December 2012, Paris, pp. 12-17
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Behind the Mask
Katrina Strickland, The Weekend Australian Financial Review, December 2012, pp. 50-51
Serious illness led Polixeni Papapetrou to focus on her inner world. The Melbourne artist muses on life, death, and her favourite works. By Katrina Strickland. -
Masking Controversy after photo furore
Kathy Evans, The Age, Melbourne, 10 May 2012, p. 24
FOUR years ago, artist Polixeni Papapetrou found herself the centre of a controversy when a nude photograph of her six-year-old daughter, Olympia, graced the front cover of Art Monthly. The magazine was joining in a noisy debate that had erupted over the artistic portrayal of children in the wake of the Bill Henson debacle, when police swooped on a Sydney gallery and seized photographs of naked adolescent girls in the belief they could be pornographic (the inquiry was abandoned two weeks later and the pictures put back on display). -
Papapetrou, The Dreamkeepers
Square Magazine, France/UK, Issue 3.1, April 2012, pp 40-51
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Polixeni Papapetrou transforming a pastoral scene: The not so gentle relationship between fantasy and reality
Gael Newton, World of Antiques and Art, Sydney, Issue 82, February-August 2012, p. 20
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Polixeni Papapetrou
Marcus Costello, Artichoke Magazine, Sydney, Issue No. 35, 2011, pp. 96-97
From playful wonderlands to otherworldly filmic scenarios, Australian artist Polexeni Papapetrou’s photographs are filled with symbology, dreamscapes and the imaginary.