Είναι μέλος του Επιμελητηρίου Εικαστικών Τεχνών Ελλάδας.

____________________________________________________________

She is the epitome of today's woman - juggling family and a successful art career... living life to the fullest. She loves traveling, Vivaldi, "heavy" rebetika songs, and Godiva chocolates. She adores life in Athens, the magnificent light of Attica, and does not own a television set, because she prefers "to go out at night". Extremely organized, she has alternated between the two same family dinner menus for the past twenty-five years! When her children were small, she would even help
them make Christmas presents... in August! But most of all, Nelli Parastatidou is characterized by her female forms and
nudes. Just take a look at four of her latest paintings: She describes "Soul" as a statue of a strong, soulful, and spiritual woman.
There is an upward movement as if the woman is being relieved of all materialistic burdens. On her chest sits a symbolic butterfly, since the ancient Greek word for "soul" means "butterfly". "Soul of the Lake" portrays a woman who symbolizes the personification of the lake. A female face wearing an earring rises from the water. Parastatidou explains the earring is there to emphasize the womanliness of, the face and the female erotic element. In "Drought", a mysterious woman covered with a veil walks in a
drought-stricken area covered with thorns. She covers her nose, perhaps because a small animal has died in the desert. Surrounded by thorns, she tries to find away out. The woman symbolizes both spiritual and material drought.
"Erotic Conversation" (graphite on cardboard) is the meeting of two people. Even though their bodies seem scattered, they are actually joined. The female parts are intertwined with the male to such an extent that they have become one body, one soul. Art critic Dora Rogan writes the following: "Inspired by the human, mostly the female figure, the compositions of Nelli Parastatidou reflect the inner world of a real artist into our eyes and souls. Those figures, derived from the antique world, are in reality perennial ones. Their imposing stature, untouched by time and fashion, denotes the presence of eternal values against the triviality of modern times. The figures revived by the artist's own concept in color create a special atmosphere known as Nelli's completely personal artistic expression ". Parastatidou has been painting as long as she can remember. After demonstrating great artistic ability in school, she attended the School of Fine Arts for five years. She studied painting with famed Greek painter
Morales and scenography with Vasiliades. After graduation, she went to Bath in England for post-graduate work and to Strasbourg in France to study interior decorating and medieval art. Parastatidou says that it takes her three to four months to complete each of her paintings. She is inspired by museums and also get bursts of inspiration when riding the... trolley! There is a uniqueness to her work which stands out. She has been influenced by the surrealist painters, she says, but also by figurative painting which has symbols one can relate to. She is also influenced by metaphysics. She works continuously and lives, as she describes it "in my own world of mirrors and colors". Parastatidou also constructs a unique frame for each painting she creates. She does it herself, she says, because she does not trust anyone else to do it. She explains that she finds it amusing to visit an art exhibit and see thirty different paintings, all in the same frames. Besides painting, she also works with graphite on linen and also with mirrors. She alters the mirrors with special chemicals and then paints on them with oils. Gold, red, and blue are her favorite colors. She also designs and makes coffee tables out of wood, crystal, and mirrors; triptych folding screens; and walls with built-in mirrors. Her advice to young artists reflects her own principles; be very strict with yourself, fall in love with your subject, work very hard, and become inspired by Greek tradition without being enslaved by it. After all, she explains, it is this tradition that has inspired all of Western spirit and intellect.
Parastatidou has participated in many group exhibitions in Greece and throughout Europe; she has done art programs for television; illustrated children's books; and is a technical advisor associated with the Bosch Gallery . She will be part of a group exhibition in Athens this summer. Her paintings can be found in the Greek National Art Gallery , the Gallery of Strasbourg, and in many private collections in Greece and abroad.