Elena Papanikolakis lives and works in Eora/Sydney, and works across painting, collage, drawing and text. Her practice examines both internal states and external experiences to explore aspects of psyche and connection. Drawing widely and without hierarchy, Papanikolakis unravels disparate source material to rebuild it anew; intertwining and making sense of personal, cultural, and found fragments, and traversing abstraction and figuration to at once reveal and conceal. Her practice is grounded by a curiosity in the structures that scaffold experiences of the everyday, exploring their function and capacity to document, describe and imagine, and their narrative, poetic, and material potential.
Ranging from snippets from her personal archive comprising photographs, memories, thoughts and drawings; to found images, artefacts, the natural world, the written word, and more, Papanikolakis uses observation and imagination to explore multiple lines of inquiry; hinting at possible interpretations whilst encouraging the viewer to engage in the act of looking. Concerned with materiality, her work often retains evidence of the artist’s hand through tactile works containing trace of studio practice, via smudges and handling marks, cut and torn edges, and irregularly shaped canvases and supports.
She has been awarded the Ursula Hoff Institute Award for Postgraduate excellence in Visual Art and Music, as part of the National Works on Paper Prize (2018); the Art Gallery of New South Wales Paris Studio (2016); the Eva Breuer Travelling Art Scholarship (2016); and the NAVA’s NSW Artists’ Grant (2015). She has undertaken numerous residencies including the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris; Megalo Print Studio and Gallery, Canberra; and Parramatta Artist Studios, Sydney. Papanikolakis has been a finalist in the John Fries Award (2019); the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award (2019); Fishers Ghost Prize (2016) and Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship (2007, 2008).
Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions including: SLIPPERY WHEN WET at Olsen Annexe (2021); Light Matter at Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney (2019); There is Fiction in the Spaces Between, John Fries Award at UNSW Galleries, Sydney (2019); NEW SACRED, Mosman Art Gallery (2018), Sydney; Primavera 2017: Young Australian Artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (2017); and Parramatta Artist Studios at Artspace, Sydney (2015). Further exhibitions including Papanikolakis’ work have taken place at Firstdraft, Verge Gallery, Canberra Contemporary Art Space and Penrith Regional Gallery.

Papanikolakis’ practice has been featured in publications including Art Collector, Artist Profile, Art Guide Australia and Neos Kosmos.

Contact: elena.papanikolakis@gmail.com

Elena Papanikolakis in her studio, 2024.

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