Ariana Papademetropoulos interview with Oliver Zahm

Her hyperrealist paintings revisit mythology and Jungian archetypes as surreal tableaux that serve as portals to fantastical scenes. By blending symbolism with contemporary narratives, she creates illusionistic paintings that challenge perceptions.

For this issue, she was photographed at the turtle conservancy in Ojai, California.

OLIVIER ZAHM — The interaction between art and magic has always been there, in a way, since mythological tales — because it starts with poetry and continues right up to the Surrealist movement. How do you explain this connection between art and magic?

ARIANA PAPADEMETROPOULOS — For me, magic is the earliest human attempt to transfer thoughts into psychical reality and to have an influence on the forces of nature. Art, therefore, is a form of magic — the transference of thought onto materials. The first time art was written about in terms of its correlation to magic was by the theosophists. Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater wrote a book called Thought-Forms: A Record of Clairvoyant Investigation.

OLIVIER ZAHM — At the beginning of the 20th century, yes?

ARIANA PAPADEMETROPOULOS — Yes, this was written around 1905. They believed that the nonphysical, hidden realms could only be described through abstract forms. That’s why Kandinsky, who was interested in thought-forms, was the first abstract artist to consider perception to be an impermanent illusion in comparison to its truth — the painted version of reality. Hilma af Klint predated Kandinsky and also imbedded theosophy throughout her spiritual and magical forms. Agnes Pelton, as well. A lot of female artists have always dealt with the spiritual realm. Magic is a universal language everyone can tap into.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Because magical art is a portal to the unknown or to a secret world, to a different vision of the world?

ARIANA PAPADEMETROPOULOS — I see art as a shortcut to that. With language, you have to describe something, whereas with painting and art, it’s a visceral, immediate reaction, where you understand something through a feeling rather than through verbal communication. This is very powerful but sometimes undermined.

OLIVIER ZAHM — Where does this interest or attraction to magic come from? Is it because you’re Greek, and all Greek people have a sort of metaphysical or mythological mind? [Laughs]

ARIANA PAPADEMETROPOULOS — I’ve been interested in magic forever, since I was a kid. I always talked to imaginary friends. I played the Ouija board. I was really into witchcraft as a teenager. Also, because of the way I look, being really pale and having dark hair, people always told me I was witchy. So, maybe that visual association made me more drawn to it.

OLIVIER ZAHM — A mutual friend of ours said you went to a kind of magic library in Los Angeles. What is it exactly?

ARIANA PAPADEMETROPOULOS — I used to go to magic school in my early 20s. There was a club called Serpentine Society, run by a woman named Maja who gave lectures on magic at the Philosophical Research Society on Los Feliz Boulevard. They have an amazing occult library. It was started by Manly P. Hall, an incredible character in the 1920s who wrote the book The Secret Teachings of All Ages, which is very similar to theosophy. Theosophy is all about the East and West, about combining all the different religions to find the truth.