Featured Artist Edrian Thomidis

Artist Edrian Thomidis finds inspiration for her whimsical ceramic sculptures in the everyday moments of life and in family, children, nature and women. Learn more about this artist by visiting her website.

 

 

Art has always been a part of who I am. It did not find me and it was not something pursued. It was there all along. When I got to high school, my teachers encouraged me to consider a career in the arts. I started to find success at the high school level and this inspired me further. This inspiration pointed me in the direction of University of Florida’s New World School of the Arts.

 

 

In college, I was able to develop and feel that creative force inside of me. I found my muse, my creative flame. Along the way I have expressed my creativity in more than one form. Early on, I produced mosaics, some of which enhanced the entrance of the Versace stores in Miami and even popular south Florida singer Gloria Estefan’s home.

 

 

My college experience was right before the start of the worldwide web revolution that began in the mid-90s. While going to school, I worked for an internet service provider and became heavily involved with the web in its infancy. Later on, as an art director, I designed numerous websites for large multinational companies like Sony, Discovery Channel, Pepsi, and Microsoft. Beyond the corporate life, I also used my drawing, painting, and technical skills to illustrate many images used in books, magazines, shirts, etc. This was all a part of nourishing my creative spirit.

 

 

In 2014, after losing a loved one and wanting to find an outlet for my grief, I signed up for a ceramic class at The Armory Art Center. My artsy soul was reignited. Working with clay provided me the complexity and challenge I experienced in graphic and web design. I was able to work with a predefined set of rules inherent to the medium, like physics and chemistry, yet flexile enough to bring my ideas to fruition.

 

 

My desire to connect with people and to evoke an emotion has not changed. My exposure to different mediums through my life experience is clear in my work. The storytelling qualities and character development of children’s books is evident in all of my figurative ceramic sculptures. The textures and finishes are very painterly, while shapes, patterns, or typeface treatments are evocative of my graphic design background.

 

 

I enjoy the process of creating even though I have a predefined set of parameters that need consideration such as size, gravity, weight, etc. My method of creating is very intuitive. Generally, each character feels like it wants to come forth without me having to force it into existence. The process is very fluid and requires communication with the work so that it becomes a collaborative effort with the sculpture itself. I think of it in terms of a dance that feeds my artsy soul. My creative process is a very reflective and introspective time that makes me feel connected to a higher level of consciousness.

 

 

My work is motivated by our interaction with our world, nature, and those around it. Life experiences and moments inspire the characters and the symbols that have meaning behind my figurative sculptures. Defined as whimsical and surreal, my ceramic artwork is expressive and aims to generate a deep emotional connection with the audience. It is more important for me that the observer makes their own story and connection with my sculptures. This is so that each experience is unique and up to the individual for interpretation. The saying “art is in the eye of the beholder,” really is true of my work.

 

Artist Edrian Thomidis invites you to follow her on Instagram.

 

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