MARO BARGILLI

I EPOCHI Newspaper,

December 2, 2018, p.25

 

An interview by Sophia Xigkaki, with the Cypriot sculptress Maro Bargilli, on the occasion of her exhibition FUTURING THE PAST .

 

WORKS OF DEPTH

 

Born in Cyprus, with studies at the Athens School of fine Arts, France and Czechoslovakia, Maro Bargilli presents 38 works which are, as she mentions, shaped by her personal memories as a displaced person, the memory of the beauty of the city of Famagusta, but also the sadness of the tragic historical events that scarred the town. “She arrived at this work in a natural and unconstrained manner, works of depth, not superficial” writes for the catalogue of the exhibition the painter-printmaker George Milios.

 

• The sculptor Natalia Mela, during an interview some years ago, said that there were natural reasons that very few women became sculptors.

 

•  Yes, of course sculpture can be hard work, needs physical effort. A sculptor needs a well organised studio, materials, sculpture is a demanding art. The immensity of the three dimensions. But today, technology facilitates the technical part.

 

• Who among sculptors had an impact on your work?

 

• I would say that mostly the natural and historical environment of Ancient Salamis and Engomi, the Archaeological Museum of Famagusta, coloured my artistic and existential anxieties. As Costas Axelos speaks of, “we grew up among the demolished temples and the mutilated statues ...”   This is very representative of my personal memory. Τhen very young, when travelling, I was not conscious of the contemporary in art, of modern art, I was for a reason classifying art in historical times. Visiting many museums, there were works of art that strongly impressed me and put questions that I could not look into them at the time. I had a strong familiarity with the Arts, I knew that I somehow belonged there, but the step forward was to be done years later, when I met contemporary artists actually exercising their art. Among them the sculptor Thimios Panourgias with whom we coexisted for many years.

 

• You have accomplished several memorials in public spaces. What does it mean for you?

 

• Sculpture is monumental as art. I find interesting that a memorial emits another notion of time. Though I believe, that history is not written with dates of events and battles, but with each individual human life... And it has to do with everything each one of us observes, the images that composed our lives. These are to determine our thinking.

 

• You were born in Famagusta, Cyprus.

 

• When I was born in 1950, Cyprus was under British colonial government. A childhood agitated by a constant feeling of fear and anxiety. The historic events of the coming years that led up to the turkish invasion in 1974, were strongly traumatic and had tragic consequences on our life. I am well aware now that all these years it was necessary to put off confronting the situation, in order to keep going – it was and still is a heavy load to live with. The dedication to my town, the city of Famagusta refers to my personal memory. I had to reach maturity to express these experiences through my work. The work “Famagusta Regina” is named after the title of a book of our distinguished poet Kyriacos Charalampides, whose work inspired and led me during the years. When I was at this work, I was engaged on my artistic pursuits. Through this process I came to this composition which constitutes a mode for my personal and artistic expression and which resulted in the monumental sculpture at the Park of the Presidential Palace in Nicosia.

 

• Were you taken aback?

 

• Yes! I worked on this project for about 10 years realising at the same period two monumental sculptures. The sound of “Famagusta Regina” is composed by my daughter Eleni Ira Panourgia who is very sensitive on the Cyprus question. A sound that refers to the abandoned city, the sea, the war ...

 

• One gets a strong sensation of war also by the materials you use, aluminium, plaster etc., but mainly viewing your figures, incomplete in a way, faces without features.

 

• Famagusta is a town which was not occupied, but remains through the years a ghost town, her inhabitants chased away, most buildings collapsed. These are poignant memories, I am gratified that I was finally able to produce this work.

 

• At the exhibition we see an enlarged photo which represents an aspect of the abandoned city, in front of which you present figures of the imaginary inhabitants.

 

• When I first saw this picture, published in 2002, I was shocked. It shows the main road that leads to the sea. Behind the cinema, we catch eye of the Municipal Library and there nearby my father’s office. Up the road, the archaeological museum and our house. The scenic presence of the residents in front of the abandoned city and its sounds, suggests the past and revokes the future. “Futuring the Past”... What I attempt is not to represent but to examine the essence. I presume that one needs to observe things from a distance. Years ago I read Marguerite Yourcenar’s  “Memoires d’ Hadrien” where she mentions that only when she reached maturity and an age gap far bigger from Hadrian himself, she then could undertake and complete it.

 

• There is the “24hour Landscape” with homage to Le Corbusier. A very different work, coloured, with light materials, carton, canvas ... How do you place it among the other sculptures?

 

• I was already experimenting with this landscape when a published drawing by Le Corbusier caught my attention. With the same curves on a landscape imprinting the length of a day. It was more than a coincidence! This is why the homage. As a conception, this “24hour Landscape” is relevant to the other works. It has common elements i.e. the curves or the spheres. The use of different materials and the colour lend a new way in composing and tracing my personal way. The result has a different aesthetic view, a more abstract and geometrical result, that expresses the looped nature of memory and interprets the sunrises and sunsets of the city.

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