Peggy Kliafa is a multimedia artist who explores themes related to medicines, treatment and healing of the body and soul. Her work emerges at the intersection of art and medicine, a dialogue she has cultivated since the beginning of her artistic journey. She elevates ordinary biomedical items, from blister packs to translucent pharmacy bags, into compelling symbols. In this context, Kliafa’s art becomes a transformative force: the rigid geometries of modernity dissolve into vibrant, ambiguous, and pulsating forms that echo cellular matrices, neural pathways, and the intimate architectures of the human body.
Her compositions recall the clarity of modernist abstraction. Yet, they resist its sterile self-referentiality. They are charged with emotional, cultural, and existential weight, reflecting the seductions and dangers of a society that seeks immediate relief from the pressures of urban life.
At the heart of her recent exhibition Healing the Grid lies a proposition: true healing cannot occur within the confines of the modern grid. Healing, in Kliafa’s vision, is not the erasure of fractures but their integration into a new order. Her work becomes a quiet act of resistance, a reconfiguration of the systems that shape us, and a call to imagine new forms of care that transcend the limits of modernity. In this sense, the exhibition is not only an aesthetic investigation but a deeply human one, proposing art as a site where healing can begin.
Peggy Kliafa graduated from the Athens School of Fine Arts– Department of Painting, with a focus on Sculpture. She also holds an Integrated Master’s degree –from the Athens University of Economics and Business with a specialization in Marketing. She has worked as a marketing executive for several years. She lives and works in Athens, Greece. She has held several exhibitions and has participated in many group exhibitions and Art Fairs in Greece and abroad.
In her interview with Greek News Agenda*, she reflects on the ideas that have shaped her practice as well as the grid, not only as an urban or digital pattern, but as a lived condition: the rhythms of city life, the pressures of hyperconnectivity, the relentless flow of data, and the bodily stresses of modern existence
In your art, medicine intersects with artistic practice. How did this connection come about?
The dialogue between art and medicine — and by extension, pharmaceuticals — has a long history and an equally long future. Numerous examples in the history of art show how medicine has inspired artistic creation, while in the history of medicine art has contributed to the study of human anatomy and disease, to the practice of medicine, and even to its teaching. Moreover, the contemporary fields of Art & Science and sci-art are rapidly developing with impressive results.
The relationship between art and medicine has intrigued me from the very beginning of my artistic journey. It is primarily a personal inquiry, a world that fascinates me but also fills me with enormous questions. An advertisement for pills in a magazine many years ago sparked thoughts that had long been dormant. I often caught myself repeating the same questions: “Should I take another pill? Should my children take antibiotics again? Is it right or necessary for medicines to be advertised?”
The words of Jacques Derrida in his book Plato’s Pharmacy — “This medicine, this remedy, this magical potion, which functions simultaneously as cure and poison…” — frequently come to my mind. The discovery of certain medicines, together with the evolution of medical science, changed the course of history and allowed us to live longer and better. The power of pharmaceuticals has always been, to me, non-negotiable and fascinating, yet controversial when we exceed moderation — and I believe this is reflected in my work.
Your recent exhibition invites us to heal the grid. Could you elaborate on this?
Let us define the grid as I conceptualize it in the exhibition: it is both physical and symbolic, metaphorical — the urban grid, the city itself, social networks and the internet, digital surveillance, and even the human body. It is a system that facilitates us on one hand but also restricts us on the other. In a sense, the grid encompasses everything that constitutes the contemporary, demanding Western lifestyle, especially in large cities.
The city largely determines us. Our daily existence within it is characterized by rhythms we cannot control: haste, noise, images, data, mass movement. Its structures permeate our bodies. Another concern that relates directly to these “grids” is the hyper-connectivity that defines our lives today. We have adopted the habit of monitoring the developments of life online through news media and social networks twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Additionally, we constantly respond to a barrage of messages — emails, social platforms, apps, mobile phones. This new reality may serve us to an extent, but it also creates considerable, often unconscious stress.
It is scientifically proven that our lifestyle significantly affects our health. My concern lies in the ways we choose to heal ourselves and address the pathologies of this pressured way of living. The suggestion is to reflect and perhaps avoid quick, superficial pharmaceutical solutions in favor of a slow, painful process of changing ourselves and our attitudes. Medicines perform miracles. Thanks to them many people live, get out of bed every day, and function — but, like everything in life, they require moderation.
Within this context, art and the exhibition function as an intervention — a point of rupture within the normality of the city and its speed. A pause and reconsideration, a search for the root of the problems. It is not necessarily an escape from reality but a renegotiation of it.
I attempt to show that chaos is not a problem to be solved but a space for reinvention. The city and contemporary civilization offer us an unprecedented quality of life, which we often take for granted without realizing its value. I would like my work to become a visual reflection on how the city and its various “grids” affect our lives — and also a quiet act of resistance. It would be beneficial to occasionally distance ourselves from the momentum of everyday life and make use of the positive aspects of these grids while mitigating their negative ones.
What materials do you primarily use, and what role does light play in your work?
Capsules and pills, blister packs, and pharmacy bags are some of the materials I use — both for their aesthetic value and because they carry meanings and associations. Pills, with their various colors and shapes, capsules and blister packs with their transparency and shine, or the aluminum sheets which are small sculptures in themselves, create a wide range of materials and ideas with which I work, much like another artist might use paint, clay, or mosaic tiles. In my chandeliers, transparent capsules become tiny crystals that reflect light; in my shields, blister packs give the impression of an impenetrable metallic surface; in the “wallpaper” made of pharmacy bags, the organized accumulation of plastic becomes a contemporary palimpsest of urban imagery. The possibilities are endless.
At the same time, these materials carry a heavy load of meanings, often perched on the threshold between the therapeutic and the toxic. A pill can be medicine or addiction; a pharmacy bag can bring relief or the reminder of chronic illness. They also embody, in a very tangible way, the logic of the grid — measurable, standardized, clean, almost impersonal.
I used light for the first time in my stained-glass works and chandeliers, where its use is somewhat self-evident and functional, but due to the nature of medicine and its packaging, it also takes on additional conceptual dimensions. Light has the ability to transmute certain materials, especially those with transparency, gloss, or reflectivity. In my monochrome relief wall works of geometric abstraction, perimeter lighting imparts what I believe is a mystical dimension. Light becomes a carrier of spirituality and tranquility, recalling Byzantine precedents.
Light and its contrast with darkness are used symbolically — as “medicine,” healing, relief, hope, or metaphorically in the sense that art itself, with its light, can “heal” the artist, the viewer, the space. Light becomes defined as life, as eternal life — which is also what medicines have sought since the days of alchemy. I use light because I believe in the positive contribution of pharmaceuticals, as long as there is prudence and moderation.
In this exhibition, and especially in the central installation, my goal — with the help of light — was to engage the viewer. Large-scale artworks that use light have a special power to activate the viewer in ways that transcend traditional viewing. You don’t simply look at the work — you are inside it. Light fills the space, touches the body, affects vision, and often creates conditions that require physical movement and adjustment. It can influence mood (relaxation, tension, awe) and activate mechanisms of attention and perception — it makes the viewer observe actively rather than passively.
In your art, medicine becomes a symbol. What does it signify? What do you aim to communicate to the viewer?
In my art, medicine functions at times literally, at times symbolically, and at times as a vehicle for discussing various themes. It may represent its physical property (its medical, therapeutic use) or transcend it, acquiring cultural, social, and existential dimensions.
Medicine refers to the human need for healing — both physical and emotional — and the justified hope that this can be achieved today thanks to the impressive progress of science. Yet it can also allude to society’s dependence on chemical solutions or quick “fixes,” to the illusion of control — the belief that we can “correct” everything through science and technology. It can also be a vehicle for speaking about the futility and fragility of human existence, as medicine reminds us of the limits of the body and of life.
I do not use medicine merely as an object, but as a symbol of social commentary. I aim to prompt the viewer to reflect on overconsumption, psychological dependence, and the ways contemporary humans pursue “healing” through artificial means — to pose questions about the relationship between body and soul, natural and artificial, life and death. I also wish to communicate humanity’s anxiety in the face of decay, illness, and mortality, and the solutions we choose today — to ask what “healing” truly means: whether it is a substance, an action, or a deeper need for inner connection.
In short, medicine for me is no longer merely a substance; it is a symbol of the contemporary human condition, of the need for redemption, and of the alienation produced by consumerist and technological culture.
Your works appear, at first glance, at least, to echo the purity of modernist abstraction. Yet, despite their strict geometric structure, they remain vibrant and multilayered. How is this effect achieved?
The purity of modernist abstraction involves art’s attempt to focus on its own inherent means and values (such as color, surface, and form), rejecting representational or narrative elements in order to express the essence of painting itself.
It is true that I often use strict geometry as a starting point — geometric structures, frequently with repeated motifs, grids, squares — elements reminiscent of modernist abstraction, such as Mondrian, Constructivism, and Minimal Art. This structural discipline gives my works an architectural clarity and rhythm, an organization and formal order.
However, where I fundamentally diverge from strict modernist abstraction is in the materials: I use medicines and their packaging (recyclable or not) — everyday, industrial, and emotionally charged objects. My material is not neutral; it carries social, environmental, and emotional traces. Thus, geometry becomes a framework for content — the work gains life, depth, and meanings that go beyond pure form.
I also use light, transparency, and movement. Many of my works incorporate translucent materials (such as plastic blister packs or gelatin and cellulose capsules) and optical play. This visual fluidity breaks the static nature of geometry and creates an aesthetic vitality: light passes through, reflects, and shifts colors. The form “breathes” — it is not cold or closed, but open to transformation.
This creates a tension between structure and experience: on one side, form (order, organization, clarity), and on the other, material and content (life, decay, environment, consumerism). This duality gives the works emotional depth — they are multilayered, because although they appear abstract, they “speak” about humanity and its time.
One could say that I continue the dialogue with modernist abstraction, but I shift the focus: from the purity of form to the consciousness of content. Geometry is no longer “self-referential,” but a carrier of ecological and social reflection.
*Interview by Dora Trogadi
Photo Credits: Christos Filippousis
