The Return Painting

As things slow down, time expands, manufactures dreams, becomes isochronous with life. Children dream, women sew memories in black and white. Is it reality which lures? Fish, birds, tattered children’s toys, all become a living organism, a story in progress. Time has always been a crucial element throughout my painting. Participation and complicity in the theme is recorded on canvas by way of a complex scenario, a journey through day and night, reconstructing memories into a deep existential form. It is memory which lures, it is existence in the internal rhythm of the natural world which attracts. / Marianna Stefanou was born in Athens, Greece, in 1954. In 1974-1979 she studied painting in the Athens School of Fine Arts, under the guidance of renowned Greek master painters Lefteris Kanakakis, Dimitris Mytaras and Panayiotis Tetsis, and fresco under Konstantinos Xynopoulos. She was awarded a distinction in semi-nude painting. During 1982-1983 she continued her studies independently in Paris. As Director of the Nea Chalkidona Municipality Art Workshop (2001-2006), and in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture for the promotion of artistic education, she worked in an artistic educational pilot programme, which was aimed at schoolchildren of 3 separate levels and 2 adult levels. As Head of Art Education at Ornerakis School (1996-2014), she taught freehand drawing (colour, sketching) and created the specialist new course “Materials’ Techniques for the creation of Children's Books & Graphic Novels". Stefanou paints using a variety of media, including oil, watercolour, pastels, often mixed, mainly on canvas and paper. Currently working on two book projects which combine mixed media works with autobiographical stories, under the working titles of "Mystery Tales" and "The Map", her artistic philosophy is the expression of fantastic realism. Stefanou’s works can be found in collections of the Greek Ministry of Culture, the Vorres Museum, the Venetsianos Collection, the Frissiras Museum and in private collections in Greece and internationally.