ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: YORGOS MARAZIOTIS

Caddisfly Project conducted a micro-interview with artist Yorgos Maraziotis, whose work is featured in Vol 01: Transitions. Yorgos is a sculptor and installation artist based in Antwerp and Patras. 

We love the way Yorgos’ work continuously creates a sense of uneasiness out of what might be comforting. His work redesigns interior spaces and objects into something more sinister, dangerous and unsettling. He exploits our ache for familiarity by manipulating context, allowing these uncanny things to redefine themselves. 

Below is a selection of his latest works.

CP: Can you describe your current workspace?

YM: Two months before the lockdown, back in January, and due to the fact that my work lately includes more thinking and writing than experimenting with materials, I left my studio and decided to work from home. When I have a project to make (either a sculpture or an installation or even a participatory artwork) I begin by doing a lot of drafts and then I communicate them with different technicians who help me realise it. This way I feel more light, mobile, and easily adaptable in modern-day circumstances.

CP: What is your daily routine like?

YM: I start my day with reading. I keep my phone or computer away and I read (for half an hour or 45 minutes) a book on philosophy, sociology or theory of art. After that, I engage with emails and then I prepare my breakfast. Three times per week, just before my breakfast, I do some meditation and stretching. Then, from around 11.30 until 19.00 I do admin and artistic work with a break for the groceries (when needed). Then I make dinner and either I continue working, or I read the news, theoretical essays or watch a film. I do go out to drink but I regard that as an act of breaking my routine.

CP: How would you title your autobiography?

YM: Untitled

CP: What are you reading now?

YM: I am currently in western Greece reading the book Daseinsanalyse by Alice Holzhey-Kunz. It is a very interesting and compact study on phenomenology, psychotherapy, existentialism and hermeneutics. The reason I started reading it is because the author suggests a systematic account of a new approach to mental suffering (based on Kierkegaard, Sartre and Heidegger, whose work I relate to most) that never neglects Freud's practice. An exceptional read!

CP: What's the smallest thing that gets in your way (like a grain of sand in your shoe)?

YM: The plasmatic necessity of checking my phone more times than I would like to.