Mylonas Eleni (1944)

She was born in 1944 in Athens. Her initial studies in Switzerland (University of Geneva) and New York (University of Columbia, 1967-1972), led her in journalism and at first she worked in magazines and other mass media. From 1966 to 1967 she was awarded grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Catharwood Foundation, and Columbia University (Helen Lee Lasen Fellowship). From 1972 onwards, her focus was on visual arts. She studied photography at the Polytechnic of Central London (1972-1974, currently University of Westminster), painting and sculpture at the Brenda Goodman Studio, New York (1984-1986), and Electronic Imaging at the New School Computer Center, also in New York (1993). She presented her first solo exhibition (photography) in 1982 in Athens (Zoumboulakis Gallery).
Photography was initially her main visual medium. Progressively, her art was expanded to more multifaceted plastic and conceptual explorations. By integrating miscellaneous materials and media both artistically and conceptually in her work, she creates thematic sections, which usually allude to social concerns, the fragmentation of contemporary experience, the mechanism of memory, and the writing of history. Apart from photography and digital prints, she also employs painting and sculptural techniques, as well as everyday objects or even incidental findings, in constructions, installations or videos, often combining them with features of performance. Her diverse and sometimes eccentric oeuvre comments aptly on the relationship of art with reality and history, based on the human understanding of space and time.
She has taught at the New School University in New York (Parsons School for Design, 1994), and has given lectures in many educational and cultural organizations in New York City.
She has presented her work in solo exhibitions, mainly in Athens and New York, and in many group ones worldwide (Greece, Great Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, U.S.A., Japan, etc.).
She lives and works in New York, where she has her own studio, but also travels and exhibits regularly in Greece and other countries. Her artworks are in many public and private collections in Greece and abroad.