Creativity and Violet

Artbox artist Violet expresses our value of Creativity - at Artbox we are creative in everything we do, from our art workshops to how we include our artists in decision making.

Violet originally joined our studio in a time of grief, making art was, and still is, endlessly therapeutic for her. However, through years of developing her practice at Artbox, Violet has become more ambitious about what her artwork expresses beyond her emotions. 

Violet’s work has developed its own mythology. Coming from a Greek and Cypriot family, she weaves references from ancient marble sculpture and historical artefacts among her own iconographic symbols - eyes and the faces of animals are prevalent in her work, in particular, the face of her fluffy black cat Delilah. 

This iconography is used by Violet to think about what the next world is going to look like, both in terms of life and possibilities for the world, but also in regards to death and the afterlife. Violet finds her art is a way to express her love and respect for loved ones who have passed, as it is custom in many Greek families to have an annual anniversary of someone’s death. For Violet, making art is a matter of bringing ideas from her mind into reality.

It is the multitude of ways that Violet brings these ideas to life that reflects the creativity at the heart of Artbox. Violet’s body of work incorporates paintings in her signature style, sculptures with intricate detail and multimedia pieces which blend the two. 

Recently Violet has experimented with making reliefs, adding clay components to otherwise two-dimensional work. She has also experimented with making ‘paper clay’ which is made from shredding leftover scrap paper from the studio, combined with water and glue. Violet couples these textural explorations with bold and decisive uses of colour.

Like many of our artists, Violet keeps a sketchbook alongside the work that she develops in the studio. Her sketchbook is the origin of her experimentation with forms and abstraction. Throughout her work she has developed her own techniques such as the ‘double flip’ which allows her to make drawings that appear the same when viewed upside down, providing unique perspective and creative ways to view her art. 

Violet’s commitment to her practice and continuous approach to experimentation make her an ambitious artist. The way that Violet has developed her identity as an artist and continues to play with materials and forms embodies creativity at Artbox