Ekaterini Koliakou is a Greek-born visual artist from Athens, now based in London, whose multidisciplinary practice moves fluidly between painting, drawing, and moving image. Her work exists in a dynamic space between figuration and abstraction, forming what she calls Message Art, a deeply personal visual language that merges bold colour, expressive marks, and written or symbolic elements. At its core, her art is about communication that is direct, emotional, and human.
Koliakou’s paintings often feel like pages from a diary, where thoughts and feelings are expressed through colour, gesture, and symbol. Each piece becomes a record of lived experience, memory, and emotional truth. Her recurring subjects include the human figure, spiritual and cultural motifs, and portraits of iconic personalities, all explored with a balance of sensitivity and raw immediacy. Through this approach, she invites viewers not just to look, but to feel and reflect.
A Cross-Cultural Artistic Formation
Koliakou’s artistic identity has been shaped by a rich cross-cultural education. Having studied art and design in Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom, she has absorbed diverse visual traditions and conceptual frameworks. This international background informs her ongoing exploration of identity, equality, and shared humanity. Moving between cultures has sharpened her awareness of both difference and commonality, themes that subtly run through her work.
Her exposure to multiple artistic environments has encouraged versatility. Mediterranean colour sensibilities, Italian respect for art history and form, and the conceptual openness of the UK art scene all find echoes in her practice. Rather than belonging to one school or style, Koliakou builds a hybrid language that mirrors the complexity of contemporary identity.
This layered perspective allows her to address universal human concerns while remaining grounded in personal experience. Her works do not preach or dictate. They offer visual spaces where viewers can project their own stories and emotions.
The Philosophy of Message Art
The term Message Art is central to understanding Koliakou’s practice. For her, art is not merely decorative or aesthetic. It is communicative. It carries messages about love, vulnerability, memory, and the human condition. These messages are not always literal or verbal. Often, they are embedded in colour choices, repeated symbols, or the rhythm of lines across a canvas.
Her process is largely intuitive. Rather than starting with a fixed plan, she allows the work to unfold organically, responding to her emotional state in the moment. This gives her paintings a sense of immediacy and authenticity. Viewers can sense the presence of the artist, her hand, her mood, and her energy in the finished work.
Written elements sometimes appear in her compositions, blurring the boundary between text and image. Words become marks, and marks become words. This interplay reinforces her belief that art can speak across linguistic and cultural barriers. A painting can deliver a message even when language fails.
Balancing Sensuality and Reflection
One of the striking qualities of Koliakou’s work is its ability to hold contrasts at once. Her paintings often balance sensuality with introspection, and spontaneity with structure. Bold colours and free gestures convey emotion and physicality, while underlying compositions and symbolic references introduce reflection and depth.
The human figure plays a significant role in her visual world. Sometimes fragmented, sometimes clearly present, the figure becomes a vessel for emotion and identity. It is less about portraiture in a traditional sense and more about presence, the feeling of being human in a complex world.
Her use of symbols adds layers of meaning. Spiritual and cultural motifs appear not as fixed icons but as living elements that interact with the rest of the composition. They suggest continuity between personal experience and collective memory.
International Presence and Public Engagement
Koliakou has exhibited internationally in galleries, art fairs, and public art projects. Her work has appeared not only in traditional art spaces but also in public contexts such as billboard presentations and group shows. This openness to varied formats reflects her desire to reach audiences beyond the conventional gallery visitor.
Public presentations are especially aligned with her philosophy of accessibility. If art carries messages, then it should be seen and encountered in everyday life. A billboard can bring an emotional or human message into urban space, surprising passersby and momentarily interrupting routine.
Her participation in group exhibitions situates her within a broader contemporary dialogue. While her language is personal, it resonates with global conversations about identity, empathy, and connection.
Naked Truth: Vulnerability on Canvas
A powerful example of Koliakou’s approach is her painting Naked Truth. This work is a self-portrait, but not in the conventional sense. It is not about physical likeness. It is about emotional exposure. By presenting herself as naked truth, the artist embraces vulnerability as a form of honesty.
The piece is influenced by the book and film Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. Known for fragmented, non-linear, and often unsettling narratives, these works resonate with Koliakou’s interest in contradiction and inner complexity. In Naked Truth, she channels this influence into a visual exploration of her own feelings.
Hearts and lines play a central role in the composition. The lines can be read as tensions, boundaries, or emotional traces that reflect the contradictions and complications of inner life. The hearts emerge as the stronger element. They symbolize love, warmth, and generosity. For Koliakou, this is intentional because she identifies herself as a loving person and wants that quality to dominate the visual field.
The painting becomes a declaration. Despite contradictions and complexity, love remains central. It is both self-affirmation and offering. By sharing her naked truth, she invites viewers to consider their own.
Spreading Love Through Art
At the heart of Koliakou’s practice is a simple yet profound intention to spread love. This is a conscious response to a world often marked by division and noise. Her art proposes connection, empathy, and emotional openness as alternatives.
The visual language she has developed allows her to communicate these values without being didactic. A heart, a colour, or a gesture can carry emotional weight without needing explanation. In this sense, her work aligns with a long tradition of artists who see art as a bridge between inner and outer worlds.
For Koliakou, painting is not just production. It is dialogue. Each work speaks, and each viewer answers in a personal way. Meaning is not fixed but created in the encounter between artwork and audience.
An Ongoing Visual Diary
As her career continues, Koliakou’s body of work can be seen as an evolving visual diary. It records not only personal emotions but also cultural moments, encounters, and reflections. This diary is open to the public, yet it retains intimacy.
Her blend of figuration and abstraction mirrors the way memory works, partly clear and partly blurred, shaped by feeling as much as by fact. This makes her work relatable on a human level. Viewers may not share her exact experiences, but they recognize the emotions.
In a time when images are constant and attention is fragmented, Koliakou’s Message Art insists on sincerity. It asks for a pause, a feeling, and a moment of connection.
Conclusion
Ekaterini Koliakou stands as an artist committed to emotional truth and human connection. Drawing on a cross-cultural background and an intuitive process, she has developed a distinctive language that merges image, symbol, and message. Her works balance sensuality and reflection, structure and spontaneity, personal narrative and universal themes.
Through works such as Naked Truth, she demonstrates the courage to be vulnerable and the desire to share love through art. Her practice reminds us that art can be a space for honesty, empathy, and shared humanity, a place where messages are not only seen but felt.
