Light and time are intertwined in the spatial surfaces of Maria Chaniotakis' work. Time, during both day and night, emphasizes the surrounding light and the reflections that are included in the works. Light, falling on the works, in immediate correlation, as always, with the idea of time, highlights the selectivity of memory.
The protagonists of the glass-paintings are the shadow plays, both as a game of life and as a metaphorical depiction of intentions and situations. The Water Gems and Women –the two unities that make up artist's most recent work – echo in the viewer's ears as a natural result of their depictions. With humility they invite us to a visual and sensual communication. With sensitivity and a decisive choice of colors and forms, channels of communication are opened between the images that the viewer has in front of him and the one he has inside him.
Lyricism imbues the very essence of the works with temperance and yet flashes of brilliance on the multiple surfaces of the works. The theatrical exposition of the visual theme forces the audience to converse silently with itself about what is left unsaid and is studiously avoided by the artist. These phonemes of silence bring out the lace-like sense and the thoughtfulness of the "open" work of art.
The holistic approach to every to each visual entity reminds one of the demands of functional scenery during a dramatic art, in which actors, scenery and plot all work together as a corpus.
The creations, consciously presented in two dimensions and avoiding their expansion into a third dimension, present their stories ascetically and symbolically. However, they come out into the space with the intention of a whisper, the use of various techniques and the dynamic of light as it shimmers inside them. Each work suggests its own narration. The violet flower, the stone plant, the swan, the echo, all move within the present of the exhibit and the past of the artist's and the audience's experiences.
The memories accompany the visual composition discreetly. The choice of photographs as segments of the work, the collage techniques, the inclusion of objects in the visual timeline of the creations, the multiple levels of surfaces, are all part of the immediate continuum of the artist's experiences. Conscientious recordings are hosted is relatively small visual spaces, after the filtering of memory which makes it magically abstract and painfully valuable. The shadows leave only hints of traces and, inviting us to a personal search for light, they hint at the next voyage that the artist will make.

Maria A. Aggeli
Theoretician / Curator of Art

Photographed by Boyd Goff (www.boydgphotography.com)