For me tradition looks like a vein that inadventently hits memoirs, even through the collective subconscious, passed on to the next generations as another ”ornament” of knowledge, as a sort of mental Clothing.

The past , sown by small or large births, sometimes embroidered with pain, other times joyfully bursts, and you can hear and interpret its echoes voluntarily. A traditional embroidery by the Greek island of Ios (cyclades) of the last century was my inspiration for creating my personal Xoblia artwork. My composition was made digitally under the symbolic spiritual use of pearls, aspirin and napthalene, printed on a silk canvas giving as a final product a silk scarf. What i needed to created was a digital embroidery executed with the patience and loyalty that requires a regular physical embroidery. I chose pearls, because i love their purity, their timeless elegance and their power to build and narrate a story! Aspirin has more or less the same shape as the pearl but totally other use :-). In my embroidery aspirin expresses the timelessness of pain inevitably through lifetime. And napthalene , the aromatic hydrocarbon,that has also a similarity in shape with aspirin and pearl, was used as symbol of conservation of the garment from the ”ejection” of space&time.

However the human figure is the one that gives meaning in every aspect of our life. A piece of jewelry gets real life when finds home, shelter , a place onto human body. My mother never met her mother, Loula. Her form was ”woven” through the stories of the people that knew her. Loula was a teacher, an amateur photographer , an elegance lover, a special woman rumors say,  that lived as a young lady around 1930 in Apeiranthos of Naxos island (cyclades). Her figure it ”echoes” through my name.  I chose to use her precious image together with photographic landscapes of the Greek land that i have captured  through time, as a background to set up my embroidery. Sometimes special faces and landscapes weave an unchanging tissue focusing on emotion and nostalgia even if they have never touched our gaze literally…

There are four version of ”Loula” Xoblia. The Sea one, the Field one, the Silk Ribbon one and the Land one.