Dimitra Siaterli, Spider Web

With her Spider Web, using a heavy metallic element, Dimitra Siaterli is able to create an impressive piece that gives the impression it could go on for ever.

The piece is the very opposite of her other works on the same subject, which exude greater sensitivity and a dreamlike atmosphere. This speaks to the ingenuity and variety identifying Siaterli’s oeuvre.

Her life in a nutshell

Dimitra Siaterli was born in Argos in 1952. Between 1971 and 1977 she studied Painting, Engraving and Design at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna. 

In 1977 she returned to Athens and founded the Athens Engraving Centre together with her husband, visual artist Pino Pandolfini. Since 1982 she has been mainly focusing on engraving. She has held many solo exhibitions and her pieces have been included in a number of group exhibitions.

Since 2010 she has been teaching at the Florina School of Fine Arts (Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Western Macedonia) as a Special Scientist.

Favourite themes and artistic style

Dimitra Siaterli identifies new, unconventional dimensions and functions in the materials she handles. She experimented with prints on large, white cloth surfaces instead of the traditional printing paper, and in doing so she transcended the two-dimensional framework.

With classic chalcography as her starting point, she showcased the cut of the copper plate to the outline of the form she intended to capture. Her creations then appear like standing sculptures. She gradually progressed to space installations, large constructions and a series of metal sculptures and reliefs.

Siaterli’s favourite subjects are:

• Natural motifs, like the spider web
• Organic and inorganic forms
• Entrapment
• The fragmentation of human existence

The spider web as a symbol of artistic creation

The spider web became a familiar symbol in Dimitra Siaterli’s work as early as 1983. The artist took inspiration from the myth of goddess Athena and the mortal Arachne, meaning “spider” in Greek.

For Siaterli, the spider symbolises the fate of the artist: a creature doomed to hang eternally from a web, but which transforms its own damnation to an artistic act through its relentless labour.

The weaving of the web each time results in a unique and original work of art. Siaterli understands the web as a labyrinthine enigma, a kind of map that leads her to discover new paths to inspiration.

Participation in our exhibitions

The piece Spider Web by Dimitra Siaterli was part of the exhibition Works by Peloponnesian Artists, held in Nafplio in 2006.

The work of art in our publications

The piece Spider Web is referenced in the following Alpha Bank publications:

• Works by Peloponnesian Artists, edited by Irene Orati. The publication accompanied the same-titled exhibition.

Buy the publication Works by Peloponnesian Artists on the Alpha Bank e-shop.

• The Works, the Landscape, the Buildings. Works of Art at the Alpha Bank Premises in Agios Stefanos (only available in Greek), edited by Irene Orati, Georgia Mazi, Maria Peratikou, Despoina Tsourgianni.

The piece Spider Web by Dimitra Siaterli hangs on the ground floor of the Alpha Bank building on 12 Pesmazoglou Street, Athens.

You can visit it by appointment. Contact us to book your visit.