Press Release
EILEEN BOTSFORD - THE PRERETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION
18 September - 30 September, Booze Cooperativa, 57 Kolokotroni St. Athens
Private View: Wednesday 17 September 7.30pm
Too young to have a retrospective exhibition yet too evolved in her career not to have one, New Media Public Artist Eileen Botsford, presents for the first time in Athens, through ‘The Preretrospective Exhibition’, a series of works from 2005 till present. Her mediums of work - film, net.art, photography, interactive, and installations - many of which have been presented as part of various public art projects and exhibitions internationally, provide a rare insight into the world of artist Eileen Botsford.
Personal and intimate yet mesmerizing and profoundly engaging to the audience’s psyche, Botsford tackles issues of our perception of mind and body, and questions about social identities and aesthetics. Working with her core subject, ‘the human’, the majority of her works present and analyse aspects of our being.
The works presented in ‘The Preretrospective Exhibition’ live on locations on-site and on-line; many have been exhibited in solo exhibitions and site-specific projects such as The Bodymode Show, Pearlfisher Gallery (London, 2007), St. Pauls Cathedral, Covent Garden (London, 2007), as well as group exhibitions such as Biennalle1: Public Screen (Thessaloniki, 2007) and numerous film festivals internationally.
Eileen Botsford was born in Athens, Greece and brought up in an international family living between Athens, Syros Isle and the U.S.A. For the past 12 years, she has lived in London, where she studied Public Art and Design at Chelsea College of Art and Design, followed by an MFA in Theatre Design at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.
Through her career she has worked internationally on large scale Public Art projects and New Media Set Designs, as well as creating numerous films and online pieces. Articles and interviews on her work have been published in Vogue, the British Council’s ‘Greek Modern Pioneers’, Kathimerini Newspaper’s ‘K’ Magazine, the Art Papers (USA) and numerous online publications.
On her work with interactive net.art pieces, Botsford explains:
“It is an alternative way to create sensations and experiential journeys, to exhibit yourself to a vast audience, to be able to share something without the egotistical response that accompanies the expectation of your work being judged.”
When talking about her obsession with ‘the human’, as she calls it:
“My work as an artist for the past 7 years has concentrated primarily on the human form, mind and behaviour in relation to its social parameters. I have developed communication through the use of the ‘the human’ through works in various mediums, interactive, net.art, video, site-specific and still imagery. My primary aim is to explore all optical and audio sensory channels, set a number of questions related to the human form, mind and behaviour and expand our mental parameters of perception on ourselves.”
When talking about her national identity and home, Eileen explains:
“I am part Greek, part American and part English, I have lived in these three countries for long periods of time and my lifestyle has never been solely associated to any of these nationalities, I am a patchwork, or a ‘tourlou tourlou’ of all of them. I only know I most feel at peace when in Greece, and in a way being at peace is being at home.”
More about Eileen Botsford and her work can be found on www.eileenbotsford.com
