The European post-war world of art, especially after 1960, saw the development of yet another school of post-pop art, apart from New York's autonomous Pop-Art. This new trend employed certain elements from the Bauhaus geometric development of shapes as well as from the Hard Edge ad and was adopted by artists from several countries. Among them, Opy Zouni holds a prominent place. Some of the basic principles in the artist's work are the well-defined shapes and boards, the bright colours with their powerful perspective, and the closely linked structuralpainting techniques.
Notwithstanding the highly standardized style in her works, the artist employs strong colour and the resourceful representation of natural elements in order to keep a constant critical distance from the scions of post- pop art, which convert Man into a macabre consumer-puppet whose preferences are of poor taste and often devastating for his spiritual and intellectual integrity.
The transitionary and enigmatic nature of her perspective, as well as the absence of any advertising objects in her subject-matter, convey variations of a simple design with an ingenious composition. I think that the supreme achievement of painting is not to pretend that things are accomplished when in fact they are not, but to create a feeling of accomplishment through which it will bring the viewer face to face with the chaos of the world which surrounds him: I therefore believe that, by fostering this dialectic in her work, Zouni stands beyond the complacency of common stereotypes and such meaningless definitions as of what is familiar or living.
In the words of the British critic and historian Andrew Forge, "When we say that a painting works, it is as if we acknowledge that its content is integral, comprehensive, active, responsive, alive". This can be true irrespective of whether the painting is abstract or representational, stylistically experimental or conservative. There is a difference between laying emphasis on how the works of an artist, such as those of Opy Zouni, depend on the principles of form found in Russian constructivism, and placing an artist's work in a mould, waiting for it to gradually acquire its meaning. I think that what Zounl's works try to arouse in us through their coloured surfaces and the forceful clash of height, width, and depth, is the tonal feeling of contradiction, which other artists from our country have also tried to give us in their creations. This was, indeed, the innermost essence in the work of the great masters of the first quarter of this century: they expressed the effects that social conditions and their social environment had on their ad. The introduction of multiform, multicolour, mutli-tonal tree expression gradually led to the creation of modern developmental art, which expresses and communicates the concern and psychological condition of modern Man.
The primary purpose of modernism was to follow and disseminate any ways which would allow art to function as a transformation medium; there was a determination that the viewer should identify the essence of art and this meant contrasting the inflexibility of art which is committed to a particular ideology with the apprehensive and unprejudiced deliberation bequeathed to us by our cultural ancestors.
Zouni's art, similarly to the art of her contemporaries, evolved at a time which was right and ripe for new pursuits. This, of course, had been heralded by Joseph Beuys, the "holy clown", who had taken the prophetic turn towards an envisioning art which had an enormous capacity for inspiration and which also enjoyed unprecedented commercial success. Opy Zouni embraced these visions. Devoted to modern art in a broader sense, she became part of the artistic elite and distinguished herself in her domain. From the very beginning, Zouni's work bore the elements which would once more verify Ortegue y Gasset's words: "the first effect is cleaving".
The difficulties which Zouni had to face when she set forth are not unknown: however, together with her talent, a factor which also contributed to her establishment, I dare say, was the unorthodox way she chose in commanding acceptance and respect. In a letter where he referred to the poet Stephan Malarmé who he idolized, Paul Valéry defined the nature of uncommitted creation, as well as the fate of its visions: "...the artist's love for and faith in his work will isolate him from everyone; this is something which is difficult to find, understand, and defend". Perhaps it is not only Zouni, but many other artists of the 60's, who will find that Paul Valery's words vindicate their work. It was in such ways that they not only eluded stagnation in their art, but brought into being a contemporary, avant-garde form of modern art which has been functioning very smoothly in our country and abroad.
I do share the view held by most art historians that the vanity of the art world - which was the product of the sudden growth of the art market in the 60's and 70's - gave rise to grotesque circumstances with social consequences; fortunately, however, in our country, although the realization of this development enhanced the ways in which a cultural, political, and economic revolution became manifest, our artists were not lured into allowing their creation and creed to be transformed to works with caricatural arty effects, like those which infested art galleries in other countries and led the way to the birth of a mass-production culture.
Perhaps this can provide an explanation of the fact that some of our artists, including Zouni, had the keen perceptiveness to anticipate the decline of art movements and proceeded, on their own, to the development of a personaltation of scientific processes and technological developments - although she did make selective use of some of their principles and achievements - which played a part in placing abstract aft in the fringe in our country.

Dimitris Papastamos
Paris, 1996