Interview by Germano D’Acquisto

Photography and flame design Rick Braukis

If you close your eyes and immediately imagine seashells from which waterfalls flow, planets floating in a stormy sea, iridescent soap bubbles, unicorns soaring inside dining rooms, flowers and buds with the gift of sight, and lascivious snails leaving secretions while crawling over buttocks and breasts, it means you’ve entered the dreamlike universe of Ariana Papademetropoulos, one of the most seductive figurative artists of today. Greek and Argentine blood runs through her veins, but she was born in Los Angeles. Through her paintings, she takes us straight into that intangible dimension of repressed desires and unfulfilled dreams. Shameless and seductive, she can emerge from her paintings as a sensual mermaid, transform into a cornstar embracing a huge ear of corn, or become a zebra blending with other zebras (this time real ones). Ariana is fresh from her critically acclaimed solo show Ringing Saturn, curated by Arturo Galansino, General Director of the Palazzo Strozzi Foundation in Florence, and hosted in the elegant spaces of Casa Corbellini-Wassermann, the Milan venue of Galleria Massimodecarlo. Here, the Californian artist explored the idea of a mediumistic painting, where her works become portals to worlds where science, pseudoscience, physics, planetary, magnetic, astrological, and psychic fields transform into landscapes of materialized imagination. Thanks to works that industry experts call "psychic-specific," because they are born from a dialogue with Wendy, a famous spiritual medium from Los Angeles, who, during her conversations with the artist, reveals visions of the metaphysical world. From the Milan exhibition onward, 2025 will be a continuous and steady growth for Ms. Papademetropoulos, who will be the protagonist of solo show in art temples such as Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris and Villa Medici in Rome. Universes to be dusted with radioactive octanium from kryptonite, slimy brain film, drops of petrochemical iridescence, and fleeting encounters with the divine. We meet her as she’s working on these projects.

You’ve been painting since you were very young; I know you attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Why did you choose to be an artist?

I didn’t really choose it—I wasn’t good at anything else. As a child, I was quiet and spaced out, and I loved to draw. And I just kept doing that.

What do you want to convey through the use of unicorns, ghost cats, flowers with eyes, and soap bubbles?

I think it’s interesting to attempt to make a painting of a unicorn or bubbles that isn’t tacky—that isn’t deemed as lowbrow. It’s a challenge. It takes a lot of self-control to prevent these images from going over the edge. The colors, the scenarios I place them in—how can I make these images seem contemporary or sophisticated?

Why does the image of the snail appear so often in your work? And why are snails sliding on naked bodies so sensual?

I often wonder the same thing, but the snail continues to enchant me. The spiral of the Fibonacci sequence, the idea of traveling with a home attached to you—where you’re protected by a shell that your own body has produced—fascinates me. In addition I'm interested in the idea of ecosexuality, being aroused by nature.

In your works, and also in your Instagram profile photos, turtles and snails frequently appear. You’ve even dressed up as a snail—are you obsessed with slowness?

It could be for my love of shells, love of creatures. It seems that both turtles and snails carry their home with them and are often associated with wisdom. There’s something meditative about both of them, isn’t there? There’s a turtle conservancy in Ojai run by a friend of mine, and I feel blessed to spend time with these wonderful creatures. Some of them are over 100 years old.

Your paintings are seductive, but sometimes there’s something a little spooky or even disturbing about them. Why?

I try to create images that exist in the liminal space—they are both light and dark. When you master duality, you find balance and tension. When something isn’t fully understood, it holds mystery, and mystery keeps something alive.

Is art still capable of being subversive?

I think so. The politicization of art has been dangerous and damaging, but I believe we’re almost through an era where art was dying because true freedom had been compromised.

Magic, the supernatural, the world of dreams—how do you explain the connection between art and magic?

Art is magic. They are one and the same. Art is the manifestation of an idea into the tangible world, and there’s nothing more magical than that.

You once said that you’re so fascinated by caves that you would like to live in one. Why such an attraction to caves?

The cave is a symbol of the unconscious, the unknown, a passageway to another world. For thousands of years, caves have been refuges where we lived and created art. The cave is both a womb and a cocoon: you go in one way and come out transformed. In alchemy, for transformation to happen, materials must go into an alchemical vessel. I think of the cave as the alchemical vessel—a place for transformation, worship, and wonder.

You were born in the United States, but you have Greek ancestry. What do you think is the most Greek thing about you?

The most Greek thing about me is my love for the sea and for mythology.

Is Los Angeles the perfect playground for creating art?

Yes. I think Los Angeles is the only city where you can truly make it what you want. The city doesn’t dictate how you live your life—you get to choose your own adventure. There’s space to dream, room to think.

Many of the works you exhibited at Massimo De Carlo in Milan were born from your metaphysical conversations with Wendy L'Belle-Tividad, a Los Angeles medium and close friend. Why this obsession with everything inexplicable?

There are two versions of myself. One is impulsive and intuitive, painting from a pure, non-conceptual framework. The other is more analytical, trying to investigate why I do what I do. My work with the psychic Wendy helps me understand why we create and where these images come from. I believe there are different planes of reality, and her tapping into my field is evidence of a metaphysical realm.

Maria de Naglowska, a Russian occultist and sex healer who moved to Paris in the 1930s, has inspired part of your work. What made Maria so special?

I used a title of hers, The Organ of Magical Action, in a recent piece. She believed that the Holy Spirit in Christianity was actually the Divine Feminine. She embodied all the things I love—art, psychic abilities, occultism—at a time when that was truly radical.

Where does your interest in magic come from?

I think I’m more interested in what we can’t see than in what we can. I’ve always been that way—knowing something is there that our eyes can’t perceive.

The theme of this issue of French Fries magazine is "It’s Hard to Be God." Why is it so hard to be God these days?

To be honest, I think Jesus was a fun guy. He was an attractive magician who turned water into wine at parties, hung out with prostitutes, and was into spirituality. He was very open-minded, and if he were around today, we might be friends. If we could all be open-minded, I think we’d be a little closer to God.

What’s the most useless film you’ve recently seen? And the most useful?

I don’t watch films I don’t like, and I don’t watch TV. I recently watched Birth by Jonathan Glazer, which raised a lot of moral questions and kept me wondering for days about the truth of the film. It’s the best film I’ve seen in a long time.

What book do you have on your bedside table?

The Invisible Dragon by Dave Hickey.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on paintings for a show in Paris, and a Nymphaeum installation for Villa Medici.

You said that imagination plays an important role in your work: is there a question you think I might have asked you?

Perhaps it’s not a question, but I think the reader would enjoy hearing how we met. Germano and I met after I had a few glasses of whiskey, wearing a nurse outfit, on a helicopter overlooking Iguazu Falls in Brazil. No better way to meet.