‘’Let no one who is ignorant of geometry enter here’’ - Plato

In the current age of information, where the power of the image is paramount, where people seek to be perfect in order to fulfil their desires, and where they will do anything to hide their imperfections, Elena Kouma’s paintings and images serve as a powerful and ironic comment on limitless human vanity. She harmonises her artistic style with her authentic idiosyncrasy, and the result is a comprehensive and, at the same time disruptive, creative work.

Creative work in which inspiration, composition, image, material status, and technique are not conceived separately, but work together in a charismatic process of transubstantiation. A transubstantiation that is not free of the metaphysical energy that defines, and is defined by, Elena’s passion for artistic creation. She convinces us of her new horizons and her aesthetic-visual and artistic capabilities. Geometry and nature, an artistic course that is not lost even in the tiniest of sketches, since she is able to keep hold of the thread – Ariadne’s yarn - that leads her always towards the exit and the light.

The combination of geometric regularity and acute observation of nature with artistic and synthesising harmony mark the originality of the works of Elena Kouma. Image and form interrelate. Through these relationships between shapes and images, the inspiration behind the works of Elena Kouma lies in the relationship between synthesis and abstraction. In all her works, she seeks her own truth, through the harmony of nature and geometric shapes, and that truth is the light of her ecstasy.

Plato says that the universe was created in a triangle so that it resembles a geometric sequence.

Dr Klitos Ioannides
Writer-Researcher.

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ELENA KOUMA: Sheaves of wheat

Presentation by Dr. Klitos Ioannides
Researcher-Writer
Nicosia, 7 December 2008

Every time I come into contact with Elena’s artistic-spiritual work I feel an exclamation rise up inside me and flood me with emotion. Once again she has succeeded in creating within me the sweet shock of surprise. She has managed to transport from the sacred unknown noble and astonishing particles of beauty and to give them concrete and perfect form through her comprehensive use of the language of the visual arts, in such an extraordinary manner that I am led to symbols with spiritual and aesthetic ramifications.

Her solar sheaves of wheat and wise use of color are imbued with the scent of an inner essence of her soul which is expressed visually through the facets of a transformation of the psychological ego that moves towards the inner existence of things. The current phase of Elena’s creative journey brings to mind the soft touch of her erotic soul, profoundly mutated into seeds-units of the eternal world.

She lowers the spiritual sun with its uncreated rays to our earthly sphere, and in this way she continues her artistic Journey dynamically and with élan vital as Bergson would have it.

Elena is a person of silence, but of pregnant silence. From this refuge in her inner world every so often precious stones Emerge, unexplainable, but helpful to those that have eyes to see. She deserves high praise; her love’s works offer Food for the soul and joy to the heart as they move (in both senses of the world) both the emotions and the mind. Her sheaves of wheat, overt and covert, condition us to the mystery, to the sacred unknown of each one of us, in order to inspire and heal us.

Elena’s work and her wakeful eye always console and heal me. Thank you my dear Elena. And let us not forget that consolation can be offered to the inconsolable workers of the vineyards only by certain other inconsolable souls. And you are one such inconsolable soul who takes and gives confort through your magical brush, transported from elsewhere.

This work of yours, like Odysseas Elytis tree of light, moves relentlessly into the light, like Jesus Christ and like all lovers. At times through organization and at others through disorganization, you give us the holy sheaf of wheat and worthily you, little mother, in God’s cultivated field.

Take joy and be blessed in your fruitful field.