On Wednesday, March 29, five Pierce students visited the National Archaeological Museum with their professors to meet with sculptress and Pierce ’83 graduate Venia Dimitrakopoulou. Our students had the honor to admire her latest solo exhibition, Promahones.
The students interviewed Venia about her life; from being a student at Pierce, to what made her choose sculpting as a career. Having remained close friends with her schoolmates, Venia says, “The school was like my second family,” adding that “Pierce has and always will be a part of my life.” Despite having grown up, in some way “we always come back to our school memories,” she said to the students as they listened to her every word.
With her installation Promahones, Venia recently participated in the 150th anniversary celebration of the founding of the National Archaeological Museum. Both the title and shape of the work are inextricably linked, portraying a collective resistance to the pressure of an uncertain future. There are three independent structures that constitute the “front line”, the battlements. The pressure they receive, though tremendous, is not disastrous: “the structures do not collapse, they change incline, they stand, they resist.”
About Venia Dimitrakopoulou
Sculptress Venia Dimitrakopoulou was born in Athens where she lives and works. She graduated from Pierce in 1983, and went on to study Theater at the Drama School of the Athens Conservatoire. She also attended sculpture classes at the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA) with Professor Theodoros Papagiannis, and attended drawing classes at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (ENSBA) with Professor Daniel Lacomme.
Venia has presented solo exhibitions in Greece and Italy, and has also participated in many group exhibitions in Greece and abroad. Her work is located in public spaces, as well as in private collections.
Her work Promahones, exhibited at the Benaki Museum in 2014-15, is currently installed in front of the National Archaeological Museum (NAM) in Athens. In 2017, the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, awarded Venia with the title of Knight of the Order of the Merit of the Italian Republic, in recognition of her work. She is a member of the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece (EETE), and has published the book Promahones with Hatje Cantz.
