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Anastasia Bekos
The series based on the PATRIS and the HELLENIC - famous shipping liners carrying immigrants across the sea to Australia - has now become a prized expression of the immigration story.
One can not help but be inspired the scene of ships docking in Port Melbourne, unloading new settlers, who are the fabric of Twentieth Century Australian folklore. Her ships drag little pieces of Greece which, with humorous connotations, represent the immemorial link betweent he past and present for the immigrant .
Anastasia is not only concerned with the Homeric nature of GreekI mmigration, she is equally moved by the effect of immigration of all cultures. Anastasia also draws inspiration for her work from her own life in Crete, Australia and her most intimate feelings as a Greek woman immigrant.
Anastasia's honesty has won her critical acclaim from the Melbourne art community and awards from various quarters such as the, St.Francis Xavier College's Highest Recommendation Prize for Naive Art. Her work has been purchased by the National Gallery of Victoria, Iraklion Folkloric Art Gallery in Crete and The Vorres Museum of Contemporary Greek Arts in Athens. Anastasia Beko's work has also appeared in the International Collection of Naive Art, and has been recommended as one of the key artist to install a permanent exhibition in the proposed Victorian Immigration Museum.
Anastasiais prolific, her dense and painterly technique renders real life on canvas. Characters are caught in motion, reflecting the salient every day life experiences of the immigrant, peasant or passenger. You are witness to a; Cretan village wedding, a dance on the Patris Liner or a shared meal between four immigrant families in one household. Through her use of colour she is able to capture those events which become impregnable memory for all immigrants, in many ways she is a lay archivist of the post war immigrant experience in Australia.
Anastasia is an important Australia folkloric painter. Her very personal documentation of her life will inform many generations to come.
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