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Xenia Miltiadou Art Exhibition and Residency at Southgate School
Posted on: January 8th 2020Xenia Miltiadou speaking at her private view on 17th December 2019.
Xenia Miltiadou, former student who recently graduated from UAL was our artist in resident during the autumn term 2019. During her residency here at Southgate School she worked primarily with a selected group of Year 11 students creating an installation together that then contributed towards their coursework. It was an absolute pleasure having Xenia’s vibrant energy, expertise and professionalism in the art department. Below is a statement she wrote in response to her experience here and for the exhibition of her work in the main reception area of school.
“Edges” is a show comprised of 18 paintings made between 2016-2019. The paintings ‘It Comes With A Little Attachment,’ ‘Eat Your Greens,’ ‘Coming Home’ and ‘Aubergine Stars’ where created here at Southgate School whilst I was on residency.
My work has always played with the boundaries of conscious decision making and the accident, and how these two opposing natures can meet in the middle to allow for a “balanced state” when making work. The name of the show “Edges,” is directly linked to the state I feel I am in when creating my work; on the edge of both conscious decision making and unconscious mark making; a sort of liminal space, not quite one and not quite the other. Because of this, I have been able to explore the relationship that my work has with the ‘doodle.’ The doodle, much like my work- embodies what it means to be veering in and out of a task, picking and choosing what to pay attention to and what to just chuck down without giving it a second thought.
Having previously worked with installation, these paintings are a depiction of what it feels like for my work to come home, both physically and mentally. It is important that some of these works were made at Southgate School, as not only is this where my artistic journey began but it’s the place which taught me most about form, edge, colour and scale. My work has come home, in the sense that it has transformed back into a more traditional form of painting, whilst still holding ideas surrounding playfulness, the doodle, ruptured spaces, and discarded waste marks."
