the moment I raised my hand to grasp it you said no we never accept treats from outcomers but I am hungry so I just had a bite and you kicked me out to a world full of strangers I came back I asked you to hug me tight to become one but instead you had become another one there is no way back home you said I had ruined it all

Personal archival material, sometimes imaginary (i.e. dreams) and sometimes not (i.e. recordings, iPhone snapshots), are being used as a starting point for both pieces. Fragments of these archives are getting cut, mixed, manipulated and confronted to raw, gestural and improvisatory procedures. In this way the signifiers lose their signified and they get reduced to being the notes from which a new body of work is being composed.

Installation view - I just had a bite, 2024, oil on linen, 200 x 240 cm.

Detail - I just had a bite, 2024, oil on linen, 200 x 240 cm.

Installation view - I just had a bite, 2024, oil on linen, 200 x 240 cm.

Installation view - I just had a bite, 2024, oil on linen, 200 x 240 cm, in the context of Touching Faultlines, curated by Panos Giannikopoulos & Angeliki Tzortzakaki, Gortynas Ancient Theatre, Crete, 2024

Eleni Tomadaki's recent works, I just had a bite and Hug me tight, engage with the intricate dynamics of memory and identity through both visual and sonic forms. In I just had a bite, Tomadaki transforms a large oil-on-linen canvas into a space of both vulnerability and rejection. Moments of intimacy and denial become gestural representations of an auto-ethnograhy, where brushstrokes articulate the fluid nature of memory and identity. Similarly, in Hug me tight, Tomadaki constructs an immersive sound installation, weaving recorded mnemonic representations and fictional narratives to blur the boundaries between reality and imagination. Her process involves manipulating fragments of personal archives- dreams, recordings, and snapshots-into a complex auditory experience that challenges conventional significations. Through this approach, Tomadaki invites us to consider how memories are composed, deconstructed, and reimagined, ultimately questioning the ways through which identity is both formed and transformed in the interplay between the personal and the abstract.

Text by Panos Giannikopoulos.

I just had a bite was presented along the sound installation Hug me tight in the context of the group exhibition Touching Faultlines , curated by Panos Giannikopoulos & Angeliki Tzortzakaki, Gortynas Ancient Theatre, Crete, 2024.