ELENI VERNADAKI

In parallel with her main work in ceramics, Vernadaki was also active in the broader field which we are accustomed to calling “applied arts”. From the early 1960s until today, she designed hundreds of table-forms of various sizes and innovative designs. In morphological terms, the basis for her table-forms should be sought in the sparse vocabulary of modernism and above all in early geometrical abstraction and Constructivism, though in some instances we encounter more dynamic, aggressive elements in the nature of Futurism. Austere, geometrical forms in ceramic material, wood, marble, terrazzo, steel, cement or iron, unadorned by any additional decoration, dominate the space through their mass and their very materials.

At the same time, she began to create jewellery, using mainly clay as well as metals of various kinds and alloys. Her work in artistic jewellery is founded on the idea of “non-jewellery”, otherwise known as “non-decorative” jewellery – jewellery as an artistic object. A common component of Vernadaki’s multifarious contributions to artistic jewellery is her attachment to simple and coarse materials, as well as to an imperfect finish, thus leaving the traces of the construction process and the texture of the material visible.

Within her long and arduous exploration of the handmade artistic object, we also find the “Mementoes”. Here she experiments with synthetic materials – nylon gauze, plastic flowers and plexiglass – in combination with mirrors to create square object-boxes attached to the wall, as well as a large variety of metal objects made of iron, copper, brass, aluminium and stainless steel.

Her creations in this field are also based on her vision – which bears clear influences from the European Modernist avant-garde – of the importance of linking art and life.