MFA exhibition

Maria Chronopoulos is currently completing her graduate studies in the MFA Studio Arts Programme at Concordia University. Forget Me Not is her thesis exhibition. In this body of work, which includes drawings, prints and objects, she investigates ideas of loss, mortality, love, longing and melancholy.  
 

In the past several years, she has been particularly interested in the handkerchief and hair as symbols for loss and mourning. The embroidery details of handkerchiefs often incorporate flowers and they’ve become an important element in her vocabulary as an embodiment of the intensity and fragility of human emotions. Obsolete today yet still widely recognizable, the handkerchief is an object from popular culture often used as a sign of mourning the loss of a loved one. In Light in Darkroom: On Photography and Loss, Jay Prosser claims: « We are confronted now with a notion of reality as lost, with an apprehension of reality as consisting in that which only can be lost ». 

The objects in the installation incorporate elements of both nature and culture. They are composed of miniature trees whose flowers are created using a fancywork technique called hairwork. Hairwork suggests the absence of a person and contains a realisation of loss. The prints and large-scale text-based drawings in the exhibition were created by rubbing the embroidered details from handkerchiefs onto glassine with graphite. The drawings tell a story but no sentences or paragraphs are formed - the viewer is invited to imagine a narrative.