Despoina Maria Logidou

Despoina Maria LogidouDalm (Despoina’sMaria Logidou artistic name) is a young Greek artist who has always been interested to understand the meaning of the world that surrounded her, while searching for her true self. She was born in Athens-Greece in 1982 and she has roots, apart from Greece, from Cyprus and Ethiopia.

When at school, she wasn’t very interested by the everyday lessons. At that time, apart from doing her homework, she would spend most of her time attempting to grasp the essence of things and the world around her, but also understand her real self. While in her last year at school, she would not finish it and she will attend classes atΑΚΤΟArt & Design College from which she will get her Bachelor’s degree with Honors in Graphic Design.

After a lot of thought and reflection, she decides to go back to finish school. So, a year later in 2005, after participating in National Exams, she manages to enter at the Theological school of the “National and KapodistrianUniversity of Athens” from where she gets her degree in Theological Studies. While feeling that there was still something missing in her studies, she goes to“AKMIMetropolitan College” from where she got her Bachelor’s degree with honors in Early Childhood Studies.

It is worth mentioning that all of the her dissertations at the above-mentioned schools were related to art and more particular with painting. The roots of her artistic pursuit are already in her first dissertation which consists in the iconographic approach of the poem "The Moonlight Sonata" of the Greek poet Giannis Ritsos. In the following years is trying to find what the field of her employment will be. Initially, she is working with kids of preschool age, aiming to their emotional and social development, through pedagogical activities, crafts and painting techniques.

Then, she edits the text of an ongoing under-publication philosophical book for the University of Athens and finally she works at a Center of Art and Creative Occupation for preschool children. During this time period in her free time, she dealing with decoration and photography but also reads books, works out and looking for ways of self-improvement.

The summer of 2016, during a difficult time in her life, she realizes that nothing can satisfy her professionally and then is when she approaches painting, experiments with various materials by trying new techniques, turning her artworks in a special way to the pursuit of the special bond which unites Theology with Pedagogy, deeper feelings with intangible forms, philosophical issues with the childish nature of man. In addition, in some of her paintings, the influence of graphic design is present.

She is inspired from subjects like praying, the sentiments of man between himself and the divine, the balance of the human psyche and the inaccessible path someone has to go through in order to approach his real self. In this way, her artwork is born, through which her internal state flows while battling between real and abstract, something that shows through the color relations that are almost never truly distinct.

One can argue that in the works of this sensitive artist there are neither figures nor landscapes but mainly atmospheres, mental and mental states. So we have paintings like “The acrobat” or “cancer walking” which are metaphors of our everyday life, allegories of the "difficulty of life" and the complex balances we have to deal with during our existence.

For example, the title “cancer walking” (from the ancient Greek word “cancer” which actually is the crab) means the way the crab walks, the slow pace of development of man who with his steps constantly moves forward and backward, as long as he lives until he finds the courage and strength to "spread his wings" and complete.

When spring of 2017 comes, she is holding her first solo exhibition at the Coronari111 gallery in Rome, where she is given the opportunity to project the psyche of her works as well as her artistic concerns beyond the narrow borders of her country. This exhibition has opened the path for her later course, making her works travel to faraway Australia.

In closing, it is important to state what she firmly believes; that the search for the divine nature and freedom of the human being is the motivation that can lead and elevate man to his true model, God!