Triada Samaras and Long Covid Series 5

Triada Samaras 2022

Disconnect

(Part of Long Covid Series)

24" x 48"

Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

Triada Samaras and Long Covid Series 4

 

Above:

Triada Samaras 2022

Falling Apart

(Part of Long Covid Series)

24" x 48"

Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

Triada Samaras and Long Covid Series 3

 

Above:

Triada Samaras 2022

Blinded

(Part of Long Covid Series)

24" x 48"

Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

Triada Samaras: Long Covid Series 2

Hello,

Please see my tract about my recent body of work here:  

Long Covid and Painting 1

https://triadasamarasartist.blogspot.com/2022/05/long-covid-and-painting.html

Below I am featuring another painting I have recently completed in this period: Long Covid 2

This is far from a perfect photograph.  I took it outdoors with a cell phone camera and there is some glare on the top left side.  However I think one can get the idea.  This paper was begun with the white legs.  The hand on the bottom came letter. I was thinking about a reprieve as I painted it and some emotional solace from all the rest.

Above:

Triada Samaras c. 2023

Reaching

(Part of Long Covid Series)

22' w x 44" . by 3/4" d.

Acrylic/Oil on Burlap

Triada Samaras: Long Covid Series 1

I have been recovering from Long Covid since July of last year when I got the Delta variant even though I had been twice vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine.  Long COVID has upended my life in so many ways (to difficult to list here) but slowly but surely I have gotten back to art making.

( For those who also suffer from Long Covid I have been receiving treatment at Mt Sinai Hospital's Long Covid treatment center and I even started a blog for awhile on Resources for Long Covid but then I got too exhausted being on the screen to do that and stopped.  Still, I feel it has a fair amount of material there:  Coping with Long Covid )

Later in my recovery process I decided I wanted to use the limited energy I have to devote myself to painting and my creative process over and above everything else. Thus I have re-immersed myself in painting with a renewed zeal and commitment.  At first, I switched to acrylic at first as it dries faster and has less fumes.  I also began work on smaller canvases as I could begin them on a table and manage that painting that way.

Fighting brain fog, dizziness, fatigue, pain in my body, chemical sensitivities and a host of other  symptoms has been a challenge to say the least.  Yet I have progressed in my recovery as I have painted. I am not back to 100 per cent by any means. But I do see progress.

In my paintings I have continued using the human body as an agent for my work as well as a vehicle for my emotional/inner experience both lived and imagined. I have also immersed myself in the matter and creative process of using the paint to communicate my ideas to the viewer.  

The result in my paintings is a blend of figuration and abstraction as main grounds for my work. But other art movements, especially expressionism, inform my art.  

While my Long Covid experience is a front and center theme in these paintings, it is not alone. The Covid pandemic as a whole, the Ukraine war, the worldwide problem of misogyny/abuse toward women, the rise of dangerous fascist government and the brutal attack on our climate also inform my paintings. My lived experience in the greater culture where dystopia, dysfunction, disconnection and depersonalization is rampant, and where the on-going battle for peace, love and higher thinking is on-going informs my work too.

As I progress, both in painting and as a Long Covid survivor, I will be featuring some of recent works here with some of my personal comments here.

Above:

Triada Samaras 2022

Palm Reading

(Part of Long Covid Series)

16" x 20" 

Acrylic and Paper on Canvas

Greek Indignants Activism Triada Samaras

This is a recent project of mine that I submitted for a social justice exhibition in Brooklyn, New York.

"I am an artist of Greek ancestry whose artwork investigates personal and global issues: identity, body, voice, house/home, geography and economics. The enormous impact of the Greek ‘genos:, ’Hellenism, Byzantinism, art activism, political protest, is in my veins. I took these photographs in Athens, Greece during the Greek anti-financial austerity protests (the ‘Greek Indignants’ movement) that preceded the Occupy Wall Street movement."

"These photographs depict both my political art activism and my

my fierce admiration for my great aunt, then in her mid-90’s. Sophia migrated from a tiny and poor Greek village to Athens where she lived an independent life, unheard of for women of her generation. She and I were the ‘indignants’ in our family system, loudly protesting the stifling patriarchy of our shared culture, and reveling in our artmaking. We were both pronounced ‘crazy’ but neither of us cared."

 

"My photos interpret everyday life with Sophia during the protests. We were closely following the events, often live on television. Greek people, all genders, were vehemently protesting the imposition of a financial austerity imposed by the European Union.  Sophia and I watched with great interest as feminist, class and national identity issues coalesced in front of our eyes."

Triada Samaras c. 2021

Gather for Gowanus: A reception supporting the Gowanus Legal Defense Fund

 

Above:  My photo taken during Hurricane sandy in Flooded Gowanus. 

Please help support the legal case for Environmental Justice in Gowanus! This ecological justice issue concerns thousands of us here and now! You can simply purchase a ticket or make a (tax deductible) holiday contribution even if you do not attend the live event.
TY. Happy Holidays. Triada

Gather for Gowanus: A reception supporting the Gowanus Legal Defense Fund

You are invited to join us Wednesday, December 1st at Red Hook Winery with invited speaker Victoria Cambranes to support the Gowanus Legal Defense Fund and our fight

 for a just and sustainable Gowanus neighborhood.

Tickets include refreshments and appetizers.

HOST COMMITTEE

(in formation)

Katia & Glenn Kelly

Lucy Koteen

Barbara Woods & Steve Marcus

Joachim & Eunice Auer

Joseph Alexiou

Linda LaViolette

Tickets/Donations are as follows:

$500 = Listing and recognition at the event as part of the Host Committee

$250 = Listing and recognition at the event as a Supporter 

$60 = standard ticket 

Can't make it? Please consider donating. 

Tickets/sponsorships are tax-deductible in full as donations to Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus (FROGGs), with the exception of $20 non-deductible food & beverage costs. 

WHEN

December 01, 2021 at 5:00pm - 7pm

WHERE

Red Hook Winery

175 Van Dyke St

Brooklyn, NY 11231

United States

Google map and directions

CONTACT

Voice of Gowanus · info@voiceofgowanus.org

Photographs of the Greek Indignants: Triada Samaras

  

I am an artist of Greek ancestry whose artwork investigates personal and global issues: identity, body, voice, house/home, geography and economics. The enormous impact of the Greek ‘genos:, ’Hellenism, Byzantinism, art activism, political protest, is in my veins. I took these photographs in Athens, Greece during the Greek anti-financial austerity protests (the ‘Greek Indignants’ movement) that preceded the Occupy Wall Street movement.

 

These photographs depict both my political art activism and my

my fierce admiration for my great aunt, then in her mid-90’s. Sophia migrated from a tiny and poor Greek village to Athens where she lived an independent life, unheard of for women of her generation. She and I were the ‘indignants’ in our family system, loudly protesting the stifling patriarchy of our shared culture, and reveling in our artmaking. We were both pronounced ‘crazy’ but neither of us cared.

 

My photos interpret everyday life with Sophia during the protests. We were closely following the events, often live on television. Greek people, all genders, were vehemently protesting the imposition of a financial austerity imposed by the European Union.  Sophia and I watched with great interest as feminist, class and national identity issues coalesced in front of our eyes.

Triada Samaras: Speckles on Labor Day 2021

Labor Day 2021. Triada Samaras. Digital Photograph. Variable Dimensions. c. 2021

Speckles on Labor Day. She is contemplating the school year and all the pressures involved. Happy Labor Day everyone. One of my least favorite holidays : the name makes me shudder. Alas time waits for no man woman person turtle and summer is closing slowly with or without my/our permission.

Triada Samaras: A Digital Photograph

I was playing around on my computer last night. 

Digital art making offers us so many new possibilities as artists. I used my monitor to re-envision the "Divine Goddess" in the trees photo I took in Maine and posted last time..

Here She is with a painting of mine with many blues to give Her a context. I like this do you?

I am even thinking of re-painting the whole thing when I feel better. Lingering Covid is a physical 

limitation for me at the moment but I do not feel confined emotionally, creatively, or spiritually if 

that makes sense. In fact perhaps I feel more alive than ever. Or maybe I am just dreaming 

again.

Sacred Tree

Dear Reader/Viewer,

You are not alone in your sense of global climate helplessness. 

I keep getting the sense that it is getting "too late" to prevent climate catastrophe...too late

 

too late.....my mind goes on restlessly repeating...But the future in unknown. I have been using

my art practice ln a new way lately.  I hope this image might bring you some comfort.  This photo

was taken in Maine while convalescing from COVID. 

Do you see what I see? 

I am coming into the awareness that one aspect of my art work is about the revelation to me 

of the Divine Feminine.  I did not even know that She was what I was looking for.  Now I 

think I do.  She has been suppressed for centuries.  Now I see Her everywhere, in fact.  

I think maybe I have been looking for her all my life.

Do you see what I see? She is reaching her arm up to heaven.

Leaving the Pandemic

 The Pandemic has been a period of innermost awarenesses for me.

I have come full circle to the eclipse I experienced in June of 2020.  There I heard I am a visionary.

I wondered what a visionary does?  What do they DO?

I have also realized even more fully this year I am highly sensitive person and an empath.

Again what do people like me DO?  How will the art I make now reflect my newish awarenesses?  This is not an easy answer for me. But I do believe I am on a path and this is day one.

I have not exactly shifted from one being to another during the pandemic.

But I have greatly morphed.  Or perhaps the words is metamorphosis.

And I keep seeing flying things.

First a bat.

Now a luna moth.

Then the beach.

Now a luna moth again.  I have to put these pieces together as I make art.

I upended a book of Ancient Art and found the Goddess Isis.

T.S. July 9, 2021

Kean Drawing One Students