Milli Jannides’ practice is shaped by language, cross-cultural movement, and introspection, often beginning with a single line of text that sparks a visual or emotional response. Ahead of the presentation with Minerva, at Sydney Contemporary, we spoke with the artist about language, movement, and letting go of certainty.
Cover Image: Victor Staaf
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Your work often weaves together language, symbols, and painting. How do words influence what appears on your canvas?
Most of my paintings start with a line or two from something I’ve read. These words are often poetic. Once taken out of context they spark an image, idea or process that I want to try in paint. Sometimes the words resonate with things I am already thinking about, sometimes they remind me of times past, occasionally they seem to speak about the future. Words invite my imagination to play along.
Image: Swan song, 2024.
You’ve lived and worked in many countries. How has moving between cultures shaped your practice?
Each time I’ve moved I’ve had a phase of feeling a bit on the fringe, not quite part of society, and I’ve spent a lot of time drifting around the city, looking at life and thinking. This doesn’t last the whole time I’m living in a place, but that phase at the beginning puts me in a particular relationship to place and it’s one that the work feeds on. I think you can get this feeling without travel, but that’s one way it has happened for me. Meeting people from different cultures has also broadened my understanding of the world; the more you see and experience, the less you feel you know…it can be unsettling, but I like that disorientating feeling of expansion, and I think that feeling is part of the practice.
Image: Furious witches, 2024
You’ve mentioned “inner worlds” and feelings that are in flux, what do you hope people take away when they stand in front of your paintings?
I hope they stay with the work for a while, the paintings show more over time. I often think of a quote from Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa: “I am moved the way water flows when the ground slopes” – that would be great huh? A feeling of being moved a little by a painting, without any effort on the viewer’s part.
Image: Wide meshed nets, 2024
Where do you see yourself, your practice, in 10 years?
I like not knowing where I’m going. In that way, I suppose I’m a bit like my paintings!
Image: The possibility place, 2024
Jannides will present new work at Sydney Contemporary 2025 with Minerva, in the Futures sector. Tickets to Sydney Contemporary are on sale now.
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