Papaspyrou Rena (1938)

She was born in Athens in 1938. She studied painting and mosaic at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1958-61). She left for Paris immediately after her graduation, in order to continue her studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1961-67). She presented her first solo show in Paris in 1966 (Galerie des Beaux-Arts).
Since the beginning of her career, she preferred working with various untraditional surfaces, instead of a canvas, such as planks, metal sheets, pieces of paper and also segments of wall and mosaic from old houses and industrial spaces. Attempting to attest the conceptual nature of art, she emphasizes the existing forms and shapes of the surfaces with interventions of various materials (papier-mâché, pencil, light bulbs, etc.), and therefore reexamines both surface and space, affirming their artistic material nature. In this direction, she has created since the ‘90s many large installations and environments.
She teaches at ASFA since 1993. She was the first woman ever elected head of the School’s 3rd painting studio, and in 2006 she was elected emeritus professor.
She has presented over 15 solo exhibitions in Greece and abroad. Also she has participated in over 40 group shows and international art fairs and events, among which are: Avanguardia e Sperimentazione (Venice, Italy, 1978), Europalia (Brussels, 1982), Biennale Sao Paulo (1983), Transformations of the Modern (Athens, 1992), et al.