Genuine, sensitive, with intense colors and photoshades, sometimes exuberant and other times low-key, multifarious and definitely unique, photographer Lily Zoumpouli speaks through her art, leaving her message in our memory like an indelible ink. Born in 1994, in Thessaloniki, her first spark for photography was ignited at the age of 15, triggered by an inner impulse. “Photography is a psychotherapeutic process both for the photographer and the person photographed. A sense of vulnerability is forged, which ends up bringing us closer to ourselves.”

She uses a digital, an analog and a polaroid camera. Her photos were taken mostly in her hometown, Thessaloniki, but also in the rest of Greece, in London and all over the UK, where she spent five years and studied the Fine Arts majoring in Mixed Media. Traveling to Denmark, Germany and Ireland, she took on other forms of art, such as video, drawing, painting, collage, sound and writing.

“My drawings are independent from my work as a photographer, even though some of them could serve as complimentary. I am experimenting with several techniques, as some of my drawings are closer to the aesthetic of comics, while others are attached to painting, taking a surrealistic or abstract form. Drawing and photography offer me a way out to express many of my inner aspects. Whenever I find myself processing my photo work, I experience the moment as if I’m painting; one medium coexists with the other.”

Poetry is also of pivotal importance in her life and work. In her own words: “Poetry and symbolisms play an active role in the conception of my works and my imagery, especially when I opt for a mise-en-scène rather than a documentary-like approach. In my videos, as well as in their accompanying texts, poetry and sound prevail in the narrative as vital elements. Most times, my videos take the form of a moving photograph.”

The majority of Lily Zoumpouli’s themes are primarily autobiographical. “In my line of work, feelings and mankind’s timeless concerns, the relationships we shape with others and ourselves, our fears and worries, whatever gives us life and takes it away from us, hold a predominant place. I believe that all people have caught themselves pondering over the above, and that’s what my work aims for: finding a way to converse with others.”

The awarded photographer feels that the multidimensional identity of her artwork resembles her. “My art expresses many of my inner aspects, hardly traceable at first glance. Nevertheless, I feel there’s nothing closer to my own personal truth.” Lily Zoumpouli, every time she’s about to create a new work, lets the spur of the moment guide her. “My work is impulsive and spontaneous, in all fields of art I’m involved in. An instinctive force urges me to conceive what I just thought or saw. I am not one of those artists who conduct targeted research before creating. I prefer to follow something unselfconscious that tries to find its way to the surface.”