oil on linen
20 x 24 inches
2019
Konstantinides, when asked why she paints, explains that she is drawn to the notion that painting hovers and oscillates in the existential space, between knowing and not knowing our existence, between being alive and having an understanding of being part of something greater.
Konstantinides seeks to create paintings that get to an inner hovering—that accommodate a fleeting glimpse of the ungraspable. In spite of all the technologies created to connect us, we continuously have to come to terms with relating to our fundamental selves. Standing in the realm beyond words, the nuanced language of painting has the potential to reference this inner hovering. Her paintings are about dissolving form so that it's held at the threshold of abstract and figurative. They are about unveiling something stripped down leaving the viewer in a state that feels meditative, like levitating in color and perceived space.
The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described this experience as when, "the world appears as the pure distance between the self and the self." The artist notes "I want the paintings to understand our striving, time and time again, to process this encounter. I want them to chase the unseen."