I have a strange history with black. First, I don’t remember wearing black as a child; where I come from, only priests, old women and men wore it, usually widows - it was mostly for serious events, funerals and periods of mourning. Later, black became fashionable, a classy colour to wear. I still didn’t wear it, probably until my mid twenties when someone gave me a black t-shirt as a present and I realised it actually suits me.

It took even longer to use black as a colour in my work. Although I always used black ink, pens or pencils for drawing and printing, I rarely saw black as an actual colour. Things changed in 2019 during a personal crisis, when I became unable to enjoy colours and only black was ok to look at: the darkest possible, to match my grief. Although working with black felt challenging in the beginning (it reminded me someone whose favourite colour was black), a deeper connection was built gradually as I came out of the crisis. Now, black's serious darkness feels familiar, open, deep, a carrier of memories - memories that can guide towards understanding, appreciation and acceptance.

This series is a collection of drawings made with ballpoint pens, half of them mainly black, and half combining black and red inks. Each drawing is a ‘record’ of a creative process that starts intensely with free repetition, but gradually takes a direction towards detail, refinement, intimacy and meditation. It is a creative process that connects to my personal background and identity: as a descendant of refugees and immigrants from Balkans, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, I grew up watching my grandmother, mother and aunts doing crafts such as embroidery, crochet, lace-making, but icon-painting too, in a similar way: delicate, detailed, disciplined work rooted on a plethora of traditional geometrical patterns, shapes and compositions, but also meditative and intimate creativity with healing properties, ways to cope with loss and trauma in everyday-life activities.

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There are some drawings in this collection that have text - these are the first attempts to apply text into my visual artworks. They are small symbolic phrases that pay tribute to what triggered the new relationship with black.

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The drawings reveal more patterns and textures when looked under direct sunlight, as the black ink glows and looks as if it was done with golden embroidery threads.