Ariana Papademetropoulos: The young California artist's fairy-tale palette and trippy installations create a lynchian aura of pleasure and paranoia

Oliver Zahm: Does a place or geography influence your painting? I mean, are you sensitive to your environment?

Ariana Papademetropoulos: Yeah, I'm always very sensitive to space. I have to be in an environment I feel inspired by. That's why my studio here in LA is in Pasadena - in that old mansion. It reflects my aesthetic and the things I'm interested in. I like the trees, the old house, walking through the big iron gates every day. It's kind of like a haunted house. And a lot of my work has elements of haunted houses. So it makes sense.