Martha Zmpounou: Visceral to Cerebral

Martha Zmpounou gained Anne Rothenstein’s Alternative Award this 12 months along with her work Dressing Up. On this interview, she discusses her hybrid inventive apply, the unpredictability of watercolour, and her strategy of discovering moderately than creating her items.

Above picture: Martha in her studio

Dressing Up, 2025
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour, monoprint on paper, 90 x 110 cm | 35.4 x 43.3 in

Josephine: May you share the story of the way you turned an artist and inform us extra about your inventive background?

Martha: I joined a basis course at 18 to arrange for the superb artwork college’s entry exams. I then continued on to finish my BA in Superb Artwork and Portray at Aristotle College of Superb and Utilized Arts in Greece. Throughout that point, I experimented quite a bit with printmaking, specifically etching and woodcutting, together with my portray apply. Wanting again, these years weren’t solely very enjoyable, but in addition pivotal to my progress as an artist and all that was coming. It was an intense interval, very formative in some ways.

After graduating, I ended portray for a few years and turned to handmade jewelry as an alternative. When that cycle got here to an finish, I returned to drawing and portray, and went on to finish a Grasp’s diploma at Central Saint Martins. I began portray and drawing intensively and began exhibiting my work within the UK, in varied group exhibitions, largely in London. After graduating, I started lecturing at UAL and different Universities as a technique to preserve my artwork apply alive, and I’ve labored as a part-time lecturer ever since. I now see my apply as hybrid, cut up between two completely different modes that I attempt to preserve separate, whereas making an attempt to not preserve them separate from one another! What I imply is, I see my artwork and educating as two completely different worlds that want to stay so, however it’s also helpful when one informs and influences the opposite.

Works within the studio

Josephine: What does a typical working day within the studio appear like for you? Do you have got any essential routines or rituals?

Martha: The very first thing I all the time do is make a cup of tea or espresso and placed on certainly one of my favorite playlists or podcasts. Then, I often begin by making some preliminary collages or draft drawings of concepts for my compositions. That is primarily when I’m working with monotypes, as they require a little bit of planning. Step by step, the method turns into fairly meandering. The picture is initially painted in elements onto family supplies like acetate and plastic, which creates a distancing from the portray floor. It’s a technique that units a mindset and temper for a extra spontaneous portray course of; I can simply alter and alter areas earlier than printing onto the ultimate floor. I switch the paint with a spoon onto paper or light-weight cotton.

Crimson Room, 2025
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 70 x 100 cm | 27 x 39 in

After I work immediately with watercolours on paper, I would begin by warming up with playful summary purposes of color in swimming pools of water, taking part in with the consequences of my media and seeking to ‘uncover’ my items moderately than create them. I wish to embrace surprising accidents that occur in the course of the course of and allow them to inform/change into my work. My works are sometimes created via a number of layers and the work develop by constantly responding to the medium’s inherent qualities.

Mom and Kids, 2024
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 90 x 114 cm | 35 x 44 in

Josephine: Which supplies or instruments might you not dwell with out?

Martha: I believe I’m a kind of artists who, if disadvantaged of my favourites, I’d have the ability to discover others, colors, objects, surfaces, to work with. In fact, working with prime quality supplies actually helps. I really feel I couldn’t do with out my Winsor & Newton Watercolours (all the time in tubes), my brushes, Liquitex Skilled Acrylic Inks and Fabriano, Arches, or Saunders Waterford sizzling pressed watercolour paper.

During the last years, I’ve experimented quite a bit with several types of paper, colors, and their interactions. Currently, I’ve been working quite a bit with materials, which I discovered to be a complete completely different world, and fairly fascinating. I suppose the usage of several types of supplies, even for assessments and deviations, is constructed into my apply.

Artwork supplies

Josephine: Do you’re employed from a reference? What’s your course of?

Martha: My work is primarily figurative. I are inclined to relate to and develop teams of works, via sure concepts/themes/ideas comparable to private histories, relationships of co-dependence, subjective and emotional views, and responses to the world. I additionally discover themes of reverie, loss, and reminiscence. Generally it’s private archives or discovered imagery that give me a degree of departure.

Technically, I develop works via a number of layers of watercolour paint both immediately on paper, acetate (monoprinting), or on discovered, unprimed materials. The underlying goal is a refined sabotage. This could possibly be concerning the superb, idealised self, in its full and coherent model, a household construction or a sure stability. I deal with the fragmentary and the cryptic, and on the delicate dynamic stability between abstraction and illustration. I’m largely within the coexistence of abstraction with figuration and the way they will play off one another.

In my current work, I largely deal with the intricacies and dynamics in human relationships and discover the nuances of feelings and the transition from visceral to cerebral. I look into the intricate and co-dependent relationships between household, lovers and buddies, inserting my protagonists in environments that mix actuality, reminiscence, and creativeness.

Course of: research for a big scale work

Josephine: For monotype do you employ water-based or oil-based paints? If oil-based, how do they work together with the watercolour?

Martha: I’ve fairly a specific technique to monoprint; I all the time use Winsor & Newton Skilled Watercolour Paint in tubes as in the event that they had been oils. I like the truth that there isn’t a rush, they really should dry to be transferred and are straightforward to scrub from the acetate. I create multi-layered works, and that is fairly helpful; with the ability to rapidly clear and work the subsequent layers. Having stated that, I do plan to experiment with oil-based paints and extra conventional intaglio inks.

Fusion, 2024
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 60 x 80 cm | 23 x 31 in

Josephine: Do you usually draw or preserve a sketchbook? In that case, how does this inform your work?

Martha: A tidy, organised sketchbook that is available in one piece is just not for me. I create numerous sketches, however often on cut-out paper, leftovers from bigger paper or ripped-off sketchbook pages. I want I might preserve a sketchbook so as, like a journal, however each time I strive, it leads to bits and items. Though I would make quite a few sketches and plans for artworks, they by no means keep put in a sketchbook. I would then create a collage of many sketches and fragments of works as a place to begin for a piece.

Mom and Baby, 2023
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 30 x 40 cm | 11 x 15 in

Josephine: Have you ever ever had a interval of stagnation in creativity? In that case, what helped you overcome it?

Martha: I struggled a bit after finishing my undergrad research in superb artwork and portray, therefore I turned my consideration away from portray and into jewelry making, a apply that was, for me at the moment, cathartic. Jewelry design and making, which I see as a kind of micro-sculpture apply, is admittedly enjoyable.

Playtime, 2024
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 110 x 90 cm, 43 x 35 in

Josephine: Are there any particular artists or mentors who’ve impressed you?

Martha: I’ve had many various influences all through the years. In my early, adolescence, it will be Rembrandt, Lucian Freud, Marlen Dumas, Jenny Saville, Elizabeth Peyton, and Chantal Joffe to call just a few. By way of mentors, my printmaking tutor has launched me and helped me to fall in love with printmaking. My time with different artists is tremendous useful to me, individuals who typically supply, with out realising, some type of soft-mentoring. Spending time with my tribe is deeply inspiring.

Night within the Backyard, 2025
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 70 x 100 cm | 27 x 39 in

Josephine: What had been you eager about or exploring on the time you made Dressing Up? What impressed it, and the way did it come to be?

Martha: This work was a part of a collection I began engaged on just lately, on the theme of play, often depicting youngsters or households. I suppose being a mom of two exposes me to loads of micro episodes of play and interactions. There’s something about function play that I discover deeply intriguing and, in fact, ageless. The theatrical facet, the nuances, the miniature gestures, the social roles of each adults and youngsters. Dressing Up is an intuitive try to seize these gestures. It’s also a really aware, or so I believe, try to mix actuality, reminiscence, and creativeness.

In a manner, this work may be seen as a second in a deeper and extra long-lasting private line of inquiry that offers with the intricate and co-dependent relationships between household, lovers, and buddies, and tries to take a look at how this shapes our identities and perceptions of the world.

Girl with Flowers, 2025
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 78 x 108 cm | 30 x 42 in

Josephine: Why did this piece really feel like the fitting one to submit?

Martha: I used to be by no means totally certain it will be. However I knew I wished this work to discover a place, actually and metaphorically, to be seen, critiqued, uncovered. I felt that Jackson’s Artwork Gallery and the Jackson’s Artwork Prize, given the standard and identification of works introduced over the past 10 years, can be the perfect platform.

Flower Association, 2024
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour and family paint on paper, 40 x 55 cm | 15 x 21 in

Josephine: How did it really feel to maneuver via the levels within the competitors and win Anne Rothenstein’s Alternative Award?

Martha: I’ve to say that I used to be actually impressed by the standard of all of the longlisted works, with a few of my current favorite artists being a part of that listing. It has been an honour to be a part of this course of and a pure pleasure to see my work shifting via and being acknowledged, all the best way to the ultimate stage. Successful the Anne Rothenstein’s Alternative Award was very fulfilling and inspiring. Anne Rothenstein is an artist I love, seeing my work being chosen by her was additional surprising and, in fact, deeply rewarding.

Beneath the Solar, 2025
Martha Zmpounou
Watercolour monotype, watercolour on paper, 100 x 125 cm | 39 x 49 in

Josephine: I used to be shocked on the scale of this work in individual, it was bigger than I anticipated! Do you often work in massive format, or was it particular to this piece?

Martha: I’ve just lately began engaged on a big scale, as I used to a few years in the past. I take pleasure in making work in all scales and I really feel snug shifting between completely different scales; nevertheless, I discover that very often bigger works have extra impression. I actually take pleasure in making them, I really feel that they free me up, though they are often fairly difficult to make technically.

Jackson’s Artwork Prize Exhibition at Bankside Gallery, 2025

Josephine: What are the qualities of watercolour and monotype that you just’re drawn to?

Martha: I suppose it’s the immediacy and fluidity in watercolour which I actually love, plus it’s a really versatile medium. I discover it fascinating that it responds in a different way to various quantities of water and on surfaces, and this results in so many unpredictable qualities, visually. After a few years of working primarily with water-based media, I can nonetheless problem myself and uncover new methods of utilizing them. I like monoprinting because it affords a component of shock; the picture is mirrored as soon as printed, and the marks are sometimes altered. Additionally, it helps me to be extra daring and decisive when portray. Watercolour and monotype each assist me develop this component of ‘shock’ in my works and a way of obvious randomness, that are essential to my course of, together with extra managed experiments and explorations on the chances of my media.

Artwork supplies

Josephine: Are there any new supplies or concepts you’re excited to discover utilizing your prize?

Martha: I’m at present experimenting with monoprinting on varied materials. I’ve already loved spending the prize on varied pigments, watercolours, and stretcher bars. I’ve additionally been experimenting with mixing my watercolours with Schmincke Aqua-fix, a brand new medium for me; it actually seals watercolours on any floor, making them waterproof.

Set up shot, Reverie solo present at Rhodes gallery, 2025

Josephine: What’s developing subsequent for you?

Martha: I’ve a number of reveals developing, and I’m actually excited for every certainly one of them. It is extremely fascinating and helpful for my very own understanding of my apply and identification as an artist, to see my work as a part of a wider present, and subsequent to different works, at instances radically completely different.

I’m at present working in direction of my subsequent solo present, which can embody a variety of works, some large-scale too, on each paper and cloth. Up to now, regardless of the stress, I’ve managed to maintain experimenting with my strategy and my media, too.
I hope I can preserve doing that. I want to carry on experimenting with each my media and strategy, specifically within the methods of abstracting my pictures.

Observe Martha on Instagram