Meet Alexia Avdelas

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alexia Avdelas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Alexia, appreciate you sitting with us today. Maybe we can start with a topic that we care deeply about because it’s something we’ve found really sets folks apart and can make all the difference in whether someone reaches their goals. Self discipline seems to have an outsized impact on how someone’s life plays out and so we’d love to hear about how you developed yours?

My self-discipline stems from my childhood and my passion for art making. My type-a lifestyle and drive to successfully complete an assignment from a young age naturally led me to develop an ambitious art practice. This discipline is evident in the complex and ever-evolving structures I build, as I am determined to allow my work to explore outside the rectangle of conventional painting practices, and let each piece evolve as I grow and change. Growing up, I always felt everything I did needed to be successfully completed within the school systems standards in order to thrive later in life. Within my own systemic processes, I let each piece have its own standards and serve as a representation of what I’ve learned through practice and experience.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am an artist that explores body autonomy and the notion of birthing oneself, where the self is consciously constructed and emerges through experiences, culture and conscious choice. My work is both physical and psychological, where the limitations and functions of the body are the pieces and parts of these constructions. I consider absurdity and humor in memories, hoping to convey juxtaposing feelings of stress and rest.

I build large scale, shaped surfaces that express my body as an abstracted vessel. Lately, I’ve been allowing the vessel to deconstruct the physical framework of the wood-based structures, taking up more and unique spaces in the physical world — it may do this by tucking itself into corners, suspended in the air, or use both the wall and ground to stabilize itself. I’m excited to reveal the ideas I’ve been exploring.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

One skill that continues to be important in my journey is problem solving. Artists are constantly creating problems for themselves as they develop a piece or body of work. Through each step in the making process, I loosely hold onto the plan I developed and allow it to change as I go. For me, practice and continuing to create work even if you didn’t fully solve the problem is important to grow as an artist. Another skill is motivation, you need to be productive to achieve your goals. Setting deadlines for myself and applying to opportunities keeps me motivated and pushes me to get in the studio more often. My last important skill is collaboration. I value collaboration so much because it brings insight to what everyone else is seeing or feeling when seeing my work. Hearing another perspective and their own problem solving techniques reminds me to explore and let each step be a learning experience for the next painting.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

One challenge I’m currently facing is the piece I’ve been working on for a few months now. Since graduating from the University of Akron’s Myers School of Art, deadlines pushed me to work harder and produce multiple meaningful pieces throughout the year. Lately, I’ve been taking my time with creating new work, implementing new ways of building, making and trying to understand what this means within the scope of my work. The particular piece I’m working on keeps shifting physically and I haven’t been able to decide what it is to me. To overcome this, I’m trying to make time to meditate with this piece, set deadlines to push myself to make decisions faster and let it be another learning experience so I can move onto the next piece.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://alexiaavdelas.weebly.com
• Instagram: @alexiaavdelas.art