FIONA FILIPIDIS: VELVET
I didn’t know how deep I had gone until I came up for air. I fell head over heels and rolled and tumbled and scraped my knees and bruised my elbows, rolled, rolled and rolled around some more until I was stopped by water and couldn’t roll any more. He branded my soul, weakened my walls and seized it all. It ended; an awakening.
Velvet is a reflection on love and loss, a cathartic journey I embarked on as a way of coming to terms with the end of my first, overwhelming, tumultuous relationship, helping me heal from the psychological damage.
The photographs stem from two pivotal trips I undertook in 2018. The first to the Colorado desert, the epitome of dreams, metamorphosis and rebirth, and the second to Northern Italy, the birthplace of the Renaissance. My process also involved digging into my personal archives and collecting images from our time together that I felt resonated differently with me today, from when we first met to our last trip together. These old images, loaded with memories, take on a new life when niched among the more recent ones. Timeless, intangible black and white photographs mingle among the more manifest, matter of fact colour ones, swinging the viewer to and fro between what was, what is and what could be.
As I gathered imagery, I also gathered my own thoughts and overheard conversations on the streets, song lyrics, film quotes, phrases from books, funny or curious things that my close relations spoke, any words that piqued my curiosity. This intriguing mix of poetry, gender critique and mundaneness live side by side with the images.
Velvet is a weaving of exterior encounters, and interior happenings.
To take apart
and put back together
a part
loose ties
and loose ends
loosened
velvet dreams
and velvet seams
there’s always light actually
Velvet is a reflection on love and loss, a cathartic journey I embarked on as a way of coming to terms with the end of my first, overwhelming, tumultuous relationship, helping me heal from the psychological damage.
The photographs stem from two pivotal trips I undertook in 2018. The first to the Colorado desert, the epitome of dreams, metamorphosis and rebirth, and the second to Northern Italy, the birthplace of the Renaissance. My process also involved digging into my personal archives and collecting images from our time together that I felt resonated differently with me today, from when we first met to our last trip together. These old images, loaded with memories, take on a new life when niched among the more recent ones. Timeless, intangible black and white photographs mingle among the more manifest, matter of fact colour ones, swinging the viewer to and fro between what was, what is and what could be.
As I gathered imagery, I also gathered my own thoughts and overheard conversations on the streets, song lyrics, film quotes, phrases from books, funny or curious things that my close relations spoke, any words that piqued my curiosity. This intriguing mix of poetry, gender critique and mundaneness live side by side with the images.
Velvet is a weaving of exterior encounters, and interior happenings.
To take apart
and put back together
a part
loose ties
and loose ends
loosened
velvet dreams
and velvet seams
there’s always light actually
︎
Born in 1990 in Paris, Fiona is a Franco-British artist whos practice is born out of collection, research and empathic response, dealing with ideas of balance, intimacy, loss, and memory. She currently lives and works in London (UK) where she spends a considerable amount of time chopping up flowers.
To see more work by Fiona Filipidis, visit - Website / Instagram
︎
To see more work by Fiona Filipidis, visit - Website / Instagram
︎