Linda Kourkoulis

Lives and works in New York, NY, USA

Artist statement

Ritual is repetition within some sort of matrix that seeks understanding amid change and the unknown. I believe ritual serves as a guide, an opening for exploration, and a place holder for reflection. As carriers of physical and spiritual life, women generally manifest the environment that is considered home and curate a space to be physically and emotionally safe. Through different mediums, I explore physical and psychical forms of enclosure. I study the natural containers made by marine creatures such as shells: enclosures made to house, protect, be occupied and abandoned by fate or design, and integrate these into compositions that center the female body as an instrument of knowing. For the sculptural pieces, I mold *living vessels *from clay, to cast using a variety of materials and combinations such as paper pulp, resin, wax, and ground shells. These creatures are assembled upon artifact-like fragments to imply a continuum of disintegration and renewal. Stitching paper, overlapping folds, leaving ragged edges, and constraining the color palette, are imagined adaptations of sea creatures and other life forms applying modifications for coexistence and survival. With the prints I experiment with printing techniques and arrange the images to interact between layers. Shells appear suspended like constellations in clusters of forms in space. The prints honor women across cultures and time who carry out the rituals for preparation, mourning and honoring the dead with details...

Artwork