MATAROA | Melina Georgouda

Lines to me are our decisions, the paths we take, the coming and the going.

Melina Georgouda

Developing the bug of art

Text: Dimitra Kehagia

Studies in Florence; a course in high school; the first COVID-19 lockdown; her need to express emotions; her love for change. This is what sparked Melina Georgouda’s transformation from a society business woman working at the family store for 25 years to a lonesome artist painting in the heart of Thessaloniki.

With this change – “I learned change the hard way, but it taught me much and I fell in love with it,” she explains – she gave herself an exceptionally valuable and difficult to attain gift: time. Time to look within more systematically. Time to create – she always loved art, but had no time. Time to see her daughter. Time to dream.

Melina studied fashion design at Polimoda in Florence, shoe design at ARS, Milan, and fashion at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Granted, she didn’t need to study shoe design to take on the family business along with her brother, but she had caught the bug of art early on, as a little girl, and Florence, with its unique art heritage, helped her develop it further. However, back then it was inconceivable to think of art as a professional path, as she notes.

“I always loved art but I suppose that when I was younger I didn’t have the strength or the way to claim more of that part of myself. I didn’t ask for it enough from my family environment nor even from myself when I was younger. I had tucked it away in a corner of my mind.”

Yet, that part of herself persevered, and started to demand more space year by year. It was about four years ago when she decided to face herself, her family and her social circle and announce that she was ready for this change.

During the first nationwide lockdown, she remembers painting non-stop. Thoughts, designs, images, colors, emotions, all diligently hidden during those demanding days working at the family business, now filled her space, her home. And suddenly, that space no longer seemed big enough to contain them.

Creating an atelier – a high-ceilinged, sun-kissed, wonderful workspace in the center of Thessaloniki – was a one-way street for her. “’Project Space,’ which happens to be fashionable,” she laughs, and explains that in addition to being a workshop, she wants it to come to life through a variety of cultural activities such as book launches and photoshoots.

These plans are also a way to bridge her social and professional past and her lonesome present as, unlike her previous life, she now spends a lot of time alone.

Both her atelier and her social media pages are filled with women’s faces, portraits and abstract art. “I count my abstracts as part of my portraits, because I regard them as my internal world. My thoughts. I have this need to put my feelings on the canvas.”

I count my abstracts as part of my portraits, because I regard them as my internal world. My thoughts. I have this need to put my feelings on the canvas.

Melina Georgouda

And her principal theme is women. “A woman is a source of life. The one who gives birth. Her power is everlasting. Her code unique. Her inspiration unparalleled. Her courage, energy, ability to sacrifice and be reborn. Even those women who leave their souls behind, so to speak, by doing themselves an injustice and making the wrong choices – they are all an inspiration to me.”

Melina Georgouda’s women are scarred. Scars of sadness, pain, courage, hope. She likes playing with lines. “Lines to me are our decisions, the paths we take, the coming and the going.” She likes strong features, asymmetry, interesting noses, and long narrow faces.

A piece is only complete when she feels at peace with it. “Here in the studio, several pieces are in a state of waiting. I fiddle with them. I leave them be. Inside, I’m not done with them yet. A work is complete when I feel at peace with its form.”

Besides her personal need to express emotions, she hopes her paintings also move the viewer. Similar to back when she was a senior in high school and had the luxury, as she calls it, of being taught Art History. “It was electrifying to have had that opportunity, and that is when I started loving art.”

Melina feels very lucky to be collaborating with gallery owner Lola Nikolaou since her first steps. She has already taken part in five group exhibitions, with the next one coming up in spring of 2024, with Stamatis Laskos and Kostis Damoulakis.

She doesn’t make big plans. She wants to live in the moment. After this transformation, her life moves at a calmer pace, which Melina enjoys. So does her teenage daughter, who can see her more often. “She also feels a different energy in the house now, and I believe that growing up she will realize what this change meant to me. I’m glad she’s getting the message that she can, if she wants to, be an agent of change in her life. That she can dare and see where it leads to.”

Yet Melina doesn’t take for granted that she will continue to paint in the years to come. And it’s not because she doesn’t love what she does, nor because she doesn’t believe in herself; it’s because she takes nothing for granted. “Life brings twists and turns. I’m not building anything,” she says and highlights that she wants to let things evolve.

She doesn’t want to imagine what her life will be like a few years down the line. She just wants to dream. And what might her dreams be? To improve her skills, to be recognized, and to be proud of her work.