Flower and Water

Image above: Desma Kastanos (DESMAKAS), Pony in California (detail), oil on canvas, 110 x 76 cm. Image courtesy the artist. 

Flower & Water

Desma Kastanos 
8 March – 26 June 2024

View the Exhibition Catalogue

The world around me is my inspiration including my ancestral lands and places I visit in Australia and overseas and my garden.  As an artist I make tribute to generations and countries passed and sometimes historical moments as well as my beloved Australia.   

My earlier work involved crowd scenes in cities gone by such as Constantinople, and action activities such as skiing in Austria. Research travel to Greece in 2013 and again last year, has influenced some work as seen in the two drawings In Ikaria and Karkinagri Ikaria, Hania photo and Poppies of Thrace. Landscapes are my current genre.  With a strong interest in abstraction, I explore ways to simplify the painting process like In the moment pours. Painting is a therapeutic process and its success in exhibition and sales transfers its benefits.   

Art offers relaxation, contemplation, healing, diversion, memory recall and other benefits which should be essential in my opinion to a hospital decor. While I was a student I worked as a carer in institutions such as Minda and other care facilities where I regularly had times in a hospital with a client.  I saw the need then for Art as a distraction from worry. As our hospitals grow so does the public who visit. Family and friends have spent time at The Queen Elizabeth hospital. This opportunity allows me to give back and respond to the local demographic.

• Desma Katsanos (desmaKas) 2024 

This exhibition is supported by Festival Hellenika.