Other Mixed Media Works and Installations

Maria Karametou’s work focuses on the complex relationship of nutrition and its healing as well as destructive influence upon our lives, and continues her investigation of the impact our changing world has on food production and consumption. 

On the one hand, we have increasingly turned towards ecologically grown, organic or natural products and returned to the restorative powers of healthy eating. On the other hand, in an effort to manage hectic schedules within our ever-shifting global environment, we regularly indulge in over-processed, “improved” and chemically flavored products that flood our markets offering options unheard of even a decade ago.  

 Growing up in Greece and accustomed to a Mediterranean diet rich in garlic, fish, and olive oil, Karametou reflects upon the differences between gathering herbs and teas from the mountainsides with her mother, to the ways we package and consume our foodstuff today. Concentrating on herbs, garlic, and vegetables, her mixed media works investigate how we relate to this dichotomy; react to our digital-age packaging and eating habits; and invite the viewer to engage in a visual discourse as they partake of tzatziki (Greek yogurt with garlic, herbs and olive oil) at the workshop that will accompany this exhibition. 

       Hisaoka Gallery, “To Eat or Not to Eat” Project

Maria Karametou’s weirdly shaped potatoes and eggplants address the idea of man-made perfection. By so doing, Karametou comments on the artificial perfection that society has learned to find appealing rather than looking deeper or seeking out ugly yet healthful alternatives. 

D. Dominick Lombardi, “Foodie Fever” Exhibition Catalog, Shiva Gallery, N., N.Y.

Maria Karametou’s image of an Ingres-eques female facing away from us squatting over a nest giving birth to eggs speaks to the idea that women are valued based on their reproductive abilities even while popularly thought of as liberated. Like the French master Ingres, Karametou created the woman’s image in grisaille tones that allow the form and the gently nuanced chiaroscuro to be highlighted.

 T. Vrachopoulos, “Paper Moon” Exhibition Catalog, Museum of Contemporary Art, Crete, Greece

In her most recent work, Karametou has moved beyond making discrete “shrines” to create installations that are archetypal examinations of our relationship to time and eternity. Her installation for AAC (“Child, House, Game”)positions a nebulous figure, childlike yet also ageless, before a blank wall, carrying a staff in its hand as if undertaking a journey. A bicycle wheel, symbolic of childhood yet also evocative of the cycles of life and the eternal mandala, leans against the wall. A painted figure of a bird soars on the wall “sky”; a simple gray shape, like a child’s notion of a house, with steep, peaked roof, is positioned on the same wall, a bit to the standing figure’s other side. The tableau could simply document a child resting from play, about to go inside her house. Yet so spare are Karametou’s details, and so universal are her images, that we begin to sense something greater taking place. The traveler on this journey is heading home- but not to any earthly realm. “

 Lee Fleming, Art Critic and Guest Curator, “Artsites” Biennial

“Maria Karametou takes the essence of contemporary urbanity and tames it. While denying nothing- loss, isolation, routinization- she also insists on the complex beauty of the city and its inhabitants. A wall of iconographic busts, in which each individual contains a symbol of some aspect of contemporary life, offers a memorial to the human spirit. The main motif takes the form of a house- here a hovel, there a skyscraper, but always more than mere dwelling. These houses offer what art does at its best- they encourage viewers to comprehend (or compose) their own story. “Vacant”subtly suggests the ageless tale of death and absence simply through the new suitcase left in front of its barred and rotted door and the cancelled stamps embedded in its walls. The tension between nature and city represented by the exquisitely painted trees on three tall houses (obelisks?) in “Cityscape” reflects that opposing tug in all us “urban tenants”. 

The pieces in this show are sculptural mixed media, either wall reliefs or free-standing, with masterly elements of painting on many of them. Prepare to spend time here- one cannot just look at these works; they compel a more intense interaction. “

                       Rima Schulkind, “Must See” , KOAN 

“Maria Karametou’s “Epigraph” (is) a small crest with an aura of mystery compounded by a Greek word carved into the center. “Being Greek and being American has informed my work a lot”, she says. “I’ve always tried to bridge the two cultures”. At the tip of the crest sits a ship, indicating the long –ago emigration of Karametou’s family from Asia Minor to Greece and her own journey to America 20 years ago. “The burning heart (in the piece), that’s me- I’m an intense person”, she says. The two wings framing the crest represent a desire to “go higher and fly and materialize your dreams and aspirations”. The word in the crest translates to “perseverance… ”

              Nicole Lewis, The Washington Post