The cursed serpent

Eleni Mylonas' new photographic works titled "The Cursed Serpent" originated in a series of press photos she came across on line, showing demonstrators in Tahrir square donning an array of household objects on their heads as makeshift helmets to protect them in the dawn of the Arab Spring. Saucepans, cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, sieves, even loafs of bread took on a new role as protective headpieces. The images so fascinated Mylonas that she was inspired to make a series of graphite drawings based on those news photos. She later reinterpreted those drawings with oil on canvas. Eventually, identifying with the protesters and emulating their plight, Mylonas started placing various objects on her own head. The introduction of the artist's image into the works resulted in a series of photographs loaded with new meaning. These portraits gain their identity from the different objects the artist has placed on her head. A plastic motorcycle bumper becomes Napoleon's bicorn. Two plastic water bottles tied with a ribbon form a padded helmet, a piece of material with a pattern of crosses becomes a priestly robe. In another image, the artist seems immobilized by the weight of a combat helmet before a Klaus vom Bruch wallpaper, a political work dotted with pictures of guns, the faces of the Baader-Meinhof gang looking through the bodies of jellyfish. Elsewhere a body of intertwined snakes turns Mylonas into a Medusa. Stereotypical imagery is manipulated with remarkable skill to suggest new identities and roles.