Soula Mantalvanos
One of the best
things about being a fine artist is that you create
work that has the ability to please people and make
them smile, you can inspire them and provoke thoughts.
It really is the ultimate finalé to an already
enjoyable creative process.
I am a Melbourne
born Cypriot living in the creative art hub of
Collingwood. I’m never short of ideas and that has a
lot to do with my social environment, my heritage and
a brilliant Melbourne culture I throw myself in. My
work always reflects my life's happiness.
When Theo and I
recently renovated, I saw our kitchen splashback as
such a blank canvas. I knew coloured glass was as far
as the industry had progressed, but I still pitched my
idea of having a drawing on the glass to the
Splashback Company. They just happened to have
discovered the technology to print images on glass and
were looking for an artist who could produce something
unique. I drew The Banquet of Cleopatra by Tiepolo
(which hangs in the NGV) and it is now quite a feature
in our home and an exquisite pleasure to live with,
like most art.
I am grateful for
my Greek heritage and believe it has influenced me
incredibly. Greek culture as we all know it is rich,
passionate, warm, and emotive. All these elements are
evident in my work.
To date I have had
four solo exhibitions and have been a finalist in a
few prominent Australian art prizes with my portraits
and still life works.
Despite my life
hold up over the passed six years from a chronic
pelvic pain injury after a fitball I was sitting on
exploded letting me fall to a concrete floor, I am
quite content with the progress of my art and
especially indebted to its powerful life coping
mechanisms.
My career
highlights include a commission from the Hellenic
Republic restaurant for a fresco like icon of St.
George on one of the interior walls, my website
created to document and raise awareness for my chronic
pelvic pain issue, in my own drawings and words which
has, sadly attracted 27,000 readers in just over a
year, and of course my first art prize win for a
'puppet' palette portrait of Ms Soula. Ms Soula is a
self portrait fully functional marionette I
commissioned Colleen Burke to create in order for me
to be able to document my pelvic pain story through
characterisation, a huge drive for all my art.
