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Kareena Zerefos
You live in Sydney, Australia, but your surname suggests something even more exotic, what is your family background?
Yeah, I grew up in Sydney and I've lived here for most of my life so far, except for about six months that I spent living on the prairies in Canada (studying design and printmaking at the U of A). My family originates from Samos, a Greek island in the North Aegean Sea. I suppose I have a very typical Greek-Australian story? My grandparents migrated to Australia in the 50s - they had a corner store and even a goat in the backyard (in Sydney's inner west!) A lot of my family still lives over there, so I like to go visit - enjoy some ouzo and a whole lot of doing nothing.
Give us a childhood memory while you're thinking about your background.
I remember the day I was climbing over a rusty old wire fence at the back of our place (we lived in a rural part of Sydney, surrounded by bush-land) and I put my hand down onto a huge hairy huntsman spider. To this day it still gives me shivers down my spine. Why do the scary things always come to mind first?
Your art has a beautiful light feeling to it, a fragility almost, then it sweeps away into a more raw and instinctive approach - tell us about what makes one of your pieces come to life.
Through my work I like to piece together my own sometimes-shadowy little worlds that come to life somewhat as a place of escape for the viewer. I'm also quite interested in exploring the juxtaposition of detail and expression in the subject with the raw, loose line work and open space, which I think gives the work a sense of lightness and isolation.
When it comes to subject matter, mediums and techniques, do you work within specific boundaries or are you free and easy about what your creating and how you do it?
Having come from a design background, I do feel like I have adopted a fairly consistent process that I use to develop my work - although to me, it does evolve in a way that does seem very natural and organic. When I'm coming up with ideas for a new work, I spend a lot of time looking through old children's books and family photo albums. I take this imagery as inspiration and in a way set up a scene of my own make-believe moments in time that are often based on my childhood dreams or sometimes memories. Before I start drawing I make collages from photocopied bits and pieces to plan out the composition to find all of the right elements to bring into the work (I'm completely a Virgo). Then I use my collage as my reference to draw from. I always work with a really light and loose outline layer in pencil, work up a couple of layers by spilling and dripping ink, gouache and tea and then work over it all with the detailed pencil lines.
Definitely, I would love to see my work live its own life and travel the world, as long as I get to tag along. There has been quite a lot of interest from people outside of Australia, particularly in the US and Europe, and surprisingly South Korea! I just need to save up my pennies so I can put on some shows in a few places!
Who are your favourite artists and the people that inspire you?
I love Egon Schiele's figurative paintings and sketches. I saw his work in Vienna a few years ago which I feel was a catalyst for my art making, and kind of inspired my use of line and white space. At the moment I'm also really into Brisbane artist Michael Zavros' work - his detail, composition and scale are incredible.
What does the future hold for Kareena Zerefos?
Lots of drawing! I've started playing around with working at a larger scale, and have also been experimenting with wood tints and gouache on pine plywood boxes! If all seems to work out, I'll be looking into putting on a solo show later in the year.
