Natalia Stathis Fine Arts Portfolio Application for the WILLEM DE KOONING ACADEMY.

2. Self-portrait: Who am I?
The Golden Love between
Father and Daughter
The Tiger inside of me
Fathers Lessons
The storm of Adulthood
Sketchbook: 15min
Graffity style
Just a Girl
Architecture Project:
One with the Jungle
Antikus Modernus
Momentum
The Innocent Face of Nature
My Dream
The rules of COVID
Sketches- Human Faces
Nature will win
Honorable warrior
All diffrent but all
woman
Value of food

3. For most people that is one of the most
difficult questions to ask. For me it is too…
Natalia is my name
18 is my age
This is my Face,
I draw, I paint, I dive,
I play Volleyball…
In this and in the following paintings I am
trying to take some steps towards the answer
for this question and show you what I have
already discovered about me…
FIRST
WORK
PHOTO
GRAPHIT
DRAWING
But who am I?
What makes me
me?

4. After I read your requirements for the
Portfolio and understood that you wanted
to understand who I am, I decided to
introduce myself through a self-portrait in
the First work and step by step show you
my world and how I view it afterwards.
But the problem was:
Who am I exactly?
What makes me
me?
How can I
portrait who I
am on picture?
What kind of
selfportrait
should I do?
What
technique
should I
use?
While applying was trying out
a new technique, which uses
graphit powder for a smother
texture, so I wante to try it
out for skin too
(here used in the waves):
Graphit powder
At first I wanted to paint myself
while looking in the mirror, then
with my wetsuit or with a
volleyball, in a setting, with my
friends or with my father,
however, afterwards I figured no
matter what I do, something will
be missing, so I decided to just
paint myself without anything
else. Just me
In what setting
should I be?

5. Inspired by Flora Borsi.
The Tiger
inside
of me.
In inspiration with the photographs of Flora
Borsi I decided to let my inner animal speak
for me.
The White Tiger with the seldom
green eyes for my strength,
uniqueness & individuality and for my
spiritual wisdom and inner calmness
)

6. One year ago I created this Acrylic painting as a birthday
present for my father. In the painting we see the 3-year-old
me and my 32-year-old father in the sea in front of our house.
The reason I included this painting is to better answer the
question of who I am, since my Father is one of the biggest
parts of me.
Furthermore I believe it shows the unconditional love between
father and daughter, as well as what that love is meant to look
like.
It shows how the father helps the daughter to fly,
while also ensuring that she will not fall.
The process:
The initial idea was to use yellow as an undertone for a
warmer shade of blue (seen in a youtube video and I wanted
to try it out). 'But as I painted, I realized It matched the
atmosphere and overall feeling of that particular moment
marvelously. So, I went along with it and modified my plan
whilst painting

7. This scene occurred after my brother (the boy in the
picture) and I were playing a soccer game and he
injured his leg and started crying. Taking advantage of
the situation, I made fun of him and said,
“You're not a man. You're a crybaby".
At that point, my father intervened, scolded me and said
being a real man meant being vulnerable and being able
to cry sometimes.
He hugged my brother and explained that it was alright
to cry and that he should never feel less of a man for
showing how he felt and that he just needed to learn
from his mistakes and do better next time.
I believe that this is a good example of how man should
be raised, since most of man are afraid to express their
feelings fearing judgment like mine.

9. Inspiration:
Adulthood comes like a wild, colorful,
scary and simultaneously beautiful
storm
I am right now in a state of life where my
childhood is nearly completely over.
I am moving to a new country in order to
study… completely alone .
It seems so overwhelming at times, but
than again so beautiful and exciting.
And if I overcome this scary first part and
find my calm inside the storm and than
the way through it, I will hopefully reach
my dreams and wishes (Symbolized by
the night sky and shouting stars).
In inspiration of:
Man and cloud
by Solomon Nikritin

11. With this Acrylic painting on Canvas I aimed to show
That this young lady is just a young lady.
Nowadays, we have to many problems in our society.
Every art work wants to critic or demonstrate on
something. We need a normal. We need more people
saying: “oh what a nice young lady” without needing to
think of gender- equality or racism anymore. I am
looking for the future where she will be just a girl.

12. With this series of works (first step: marker; Second step: colored
pencil) I wanted to show the different faces of women, not only the
different races, but that we are not all alike. We can be strong, but we
can also be vulnerable. We can be a girly girl, but also a tuff girl...
All different but all Woman

13. This charcoal drawing is meant to
represent the beauty of the moment.
I was inspired by the music of my
favorite band: Black Pink
While I was listening to their music,
I felt as if time stood still and the
beauty of the moment came to light.
So I tried to stop time...
The woman in the picture is Lisa, the
main dancer and lead rapper of the
band.

14. I tried to combine this
drawing, in which I felt the
time had stopped, with Lisa
Same technique as
Self-portrait

16. The Rules of
COVID
Inspired by ROY LICHTENSETEIN
During COVID, many people suffered from either death,
illness, loneliness, the inability to adapt, etc.
Personally, it was very frustrating to be unable to see
my friends or go outside without texting the
Government first. I felt like my childhood and my
freedom had been stolen.
There was a bunch of different new rules. At times it
seemed a bit like a joke to me, since most of the rules
here in Greece served not to protect us from COVID,
but rather to pressure us to get vaccinated. They either
paid us to get vaccinated or they didn't allow
unvaccinated people to enter a store even if they had a
valid rapid test, whereas vaccinated people could go
anywhere without a test, although they
could still have COVID.
That's why during the second lockdown,
after seeing Lichtenstein's POP art exhibit,
I was inspired to make my own version of
what the COVID rules looked like to me.
Acrylic
painting

17. Initially, I wanted to voice my frustration over the contrast between rich and poor: "The
rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer". In Africa, 278 million people,
20% of the continent's population, suffer from chronic hunger (10% worldwide).
Whereas other people have more money than they can spend.
However, later on I figured that rather than criticizing the issue for the millionth time, I
should do a piece that demonstrates how we should value our food, especially in the
"rich" countries.
That is why I made an Oil painting
of a single fruit in its natural form
and color and a charcoal drawing
of the masses of "perfect" looking,
Fake tasting fruit that we have
in our Supermarket and 12%
are not even sold but thrown away.
First Idea (sketch):

19. Nature will
win
This Watercolor painting was
inspired by a abandoned car I saw in
my village from which grass was
slowly growing.
Later, I started to wonder whether I
could use it to illustrate that Nature
is going to continue to exist after
us.
Nature may take some time after us
and it will probably change, but it
won't die.
We, on the other hand, are digging
our very own grave.

20. Process
First I was thinking to make a
lot of diffrent pieces on that
topic. I wanted to make a
train haning from a cliff, a
Shipwrack underwater…
But than I realized trough the
car i had seen on my village,
that with a tree coming from
a car it could be best
portraited that nature will
overcome humanity
First Sketch:
What destroys Natur
-or trys to-,
will be destoyed by
Nature

21. With this colored pencil drawing I wanted to
emphasize the vulnerability and innocence of
Nature and its wildlife.
Originally, the idea of drawing a
monkey first came to me at school
when I was scribbling over my
notebook.
Apes are the most human-like
animals. So I thought that people
would probably identify with them
more and attach more meaning to
them. Furthermore, they could
use them as example of how to
live in harmony with nature.
I chose a young monkey to
emphasize its vulnerability, like
children.
Perhaps in this way more people
would want to protect these
beings, same as they would
protect their own children.

24. Tatlin’s Tower
Garden by
the Bay

25. This work was a school
project in my arts class.
The task was to design a
dress which combines
past, nature and
modern life. As half
greek I choose the
Antike as time periode,
wood for the natural-
aspect and the style
of combination and
design, as well as music
and walk during the
fashion walk for the
modern touch.
On the following page
you can see the process
and Idea behind this
creation
.

26. The criteria for my design were simple.
I wanted to combine classic Greek Antiquity with
a contemporary twist.
Thus, for the Hellenic aspect, I chose the white
dress, the leather bands, gold accessories and an
overall simple and lightweight style.
By revealing more skin and using wooden
elements as a non-classical, asymmetric and
organic aspect, I wanted to represent the
contemporary edge.
I got the Idea
with the wood
elemnts after
finding it in the
forrest. I did not
make a sketch
but started
emediently to
work

28. The following sketches are some of my
favorites from this sketchbook.
I first started trying out this style when I first
moved from Germany to Greece and was
exploring my new city (Thessaloniki) and its
street art.
In many cases - I just walked around the city
and drew whatever caught my eye.
S
Sketchbook: Graffity style sketches
(made in 15 min each)