Spyrouli Barbara (1961)

Born in Athens in 1961, she studied painting at the ASFA under N. Kessanlis and T. Patraskidis (1986-1991) as well as sculpture and lithography under G. Nikolaidis and Th. Exarchopoulos, respectively. She continued with postgraduate studies at the NTUA's Dept of Architecture, where her thesis on Virtual Realiτy and Art was supervised by professors D. Papalexopoulos, K. Moraitis and D. Haritos (2001-2003).
Her 1996 solo exhibition "Assemblages" (Galerie 3) featured constructions of such diverse materials as wire, alpaca, sheet metal, paper and fabric and made up a cycle of works—sets of connections, contacts and interactions based on the idea of grids, where the concept of structure is dominant. Wire was a favourite material she used systematically throughout the first decade of her career. In 2000 the wire constructions she exhibited at Galerie 3 constituted visual surfaces with mythical or existing figures. During the 2000s her interest shifts to Virtual Environments; featuring various applications, 3D objects, graphics, photography, sound and video, these environments are created by turning actual paintings and wire constructions on the subject of webs into 'virtual' artworks.
The use of the grid comes back in her more recent projects: the installations and constructions in "Localisations" (Kaplanon Art Galleries, 2011) aim to define space through the paths and the voids they establish, while in the "Spaces of Places" series (Angathi-Kartalos Art Gallery, 2016), the sculptural forms-installations out of grids-shapes of a fluid geometry function in space to denote passages, paths in the place of the grids and in the space in which they float.
She has presented her work in solo exhibitions in Greece and in numerous group shows in Greece and abroad: Die Kunst ist ein Ausweg bei sexuellen Problemen (2018, Freud’s Dream Museum, St Petersburg), Viennartweek-Kunstlerhaus (2010 & 2008, Vienna), 9th Biennale of Sculpture (1996 Skironion Museum Polychronopoulos), Exhibition of ASFA Graduates (1991, National Gallery), etc.