Eleni Psyllaki
Let your dreams flow inside me

The Breeder is pleased to present Let your dreams flow inside me, a solo exhibition by Eleni Psyllaki. The exhibition unfolds as a meditation on balance and self-reflection, an exploration of opposing forces that sustain and complete one another. Heavily inspired by geometric principles, architectural and mythological forms, and the human figure, Psyllaki constructs a distinct visual language that is at once ancient and contemporary.

Psyllaki’s works appear strikingly clean and controlled. Geometric forms align with near-mechanical precision, echoing a world increasingly shaped by digital tools and automated perfection. Yet these shapes are crafted entirely by hand, underlining the quiet tension evident in her oeuvre. Slight variations, grainy textures, and subtle details reveal the artist’s presence—her “handprint”—asserting the enduring importance of the human act of making in an era of sterile perfection. Precision becomes an act of resistance, and balance emerges between the digital and the organic.

Up close, the shapes spring to life. Earthy tones and tactile textures recall clay, soil, sand, and stone—materials that evoke land, labor, and antiquity. Psyllaki’s palette is rooted in the Mediterranean landscape of her home and heritage: burgundy, cream, navy, and muted natural shades that feel sun-worn and timeless. Her hues transform into an unbound collection of references, ideas, and traces of memory. These colors expand across canvases of all scales, allowing the viewer to fully inhabit the textures and experience the slow unfolding of form.

The contemporary essence of her work results from a multitude of visual inspirations, ranging across styles and periods that inform her artistic practice and allow her to reimagine familiar motifs anew. The vessel stands at the conceptual core of Psyllaki’s practice. Historically a container for life’s most precious resources—food, wine, and wealth—it becomes a metaphor for the human condition itself. Like people, these vessels are open-ended, holding experiences, memories, and emotions. Recurring motifs such as vases and figurines, often depicted as paired figures—lovers, dancers—suggest intimacy and interdependence.

Echoing archetypal female figurative forms, these figures appear not as isolated subjects but as part of a relational ecosystem: bodies lean, flow, and respond to one another. The pairings also evoke ancient Greek ideals of love, longing, and unity. A palpable yearning runs throughout the exhibition—for closeness, for community. At the same time, reminiscent of Byzantine iconography in perspective, color, and atmosphere, Psyllaki uses painting as a contemporary form of devotion. Her works function as modern icons—new-age monuments and deities devoted to balance, care, protection, and togetherness.

References to communal living and sigil-like symbols of protection underscore the exhibition’s emphasis on interconnection. Minimalist in composition yet rich in meaning, no two works are alike, expanding into countless iterations of unique shapes and curves. Each form reinvents itself, responding to others and finding new ways to exist in dialogue.

Geometry plays a central role in Psyllaki’s practice, informed by her architectural background. Structures appear stable and deliberate, floating in a timeless, almost otherworldly space of sand, air, and abstraction. These forms feel simultaneously archaic and transcendental—presences that defy time. Though sculptural in origin, they are translated into two-dimensional images that retain their material memory. In turn, they seem to reanimate themselves as holistic beings, developing mythologies of their own: they dance, pray, protect, and coexist within a multidimensional universe.

Ultimately, Let your dreams flow inside me longs for a contemporary belief system grounded in symmetry and imbalance, order and freedom, solitude and togetherness. Psyllaki invites us to think of ourselves as vessels—shaped by what we carry, defined by what came before us, and sustained by our need for connection. In honoring both the ancient and the new, the mechanical and the handmade, she offers a space to pause, reflect, and remember the human touch at the center of it all.

Eleni Psyllaki (b. 1981, Crete) is a visual artist with a background in design and architecture. Born and raised in Crete, her work draws inspiration from Minoan figures and architectural forms, with a strong affinity for symmetry, geometry, and structural clarity. She studied Architecture at the University of Thessaly (1999–2006). After a decade of working as an architect, she founded Studio Paradissi. Psyllaki is represented by The Breeder (Athens, Greece), where she presented a solo exhibition in 2022. She participated in the group exhibition Contemporary Compilation Vol. 1 (2023, Living Limassol, Cyprus). In 2024, she held the solo exhibition Silhouettes at Alai Crete Hotel (Stalida, Crete) and completed a large-scale public mural commission for Onassis Stegi, A Female Figure in Red and Purple Costume (2024), at 42 Lagoumitzi Street, Athens.