Artist Story: Eleni Vryza

Eleni Vryza, Artist

I graduated from The Central Academy of Drama in China where I studied painting. We studied painting and also opera make-up, working with different artists. I was really fascinated by Beijing opera’s stylized make-up and extremely beautiful costumes. They occupy the whole stage and their costuming also conveys meaning about the story and what characters are represented. My artwork conveys those characters and their dynamic stories with representational masks.

There are many local operas in China; Yue opera near Shanghai, Hebei Banji near Hebei, and Kunqu are but a few examples. There are so many traditional characters involved in Chinese opera: there are ghosts, warriors, there are the traditional characters like xiao sheng, lao tan, and xiao tan. Particular to the Chinese opera is the recurrent theme of the female warrior—a la Mulan. The female role is both strong and vulnerable at the same time. These operas are different from Ancient Greek drama not only visually but also in terms of their dramaturgy. For example, the female character may endure the tragedy of discovering their husband’s second family in the capital city. Inevitably, however, they represent and provoke the unification and resolution of the families, whereas, in Greek tragedies families are likely torn apart. In this sense, the dynamic nature of the female characters really makes the story come alive.

One traditional story that I enjoy using in my art, is that of the Monkey King. He is a symbol of humanity in a performance about divine guidance. The monkey king goes to heaven and creates a lot of trouble. He gets drunk, one could say, on challenging the authority of divine order. In Journey to the West, one of the Chinese classics, the Monkey King travels together with a Buddhist monk to the West of China and to India. It is a famous journey of great importance to the Buddhist religion and its development in China. It is really fun to watch these performances with the audiences in China because people know the stories, so they sing along!

While making my mask of the Monkey King, I thought of all the stories my character was involved in, and in a sense, I sing their spirit into the mask I am making. The lines and colors, mere details of the mask, become tools that further explore this character. For instance, the red color in the Monkey King mask represents its goodness in the Chinese tradition. Maria Irene Fornes, the Cuban-American playwright I studied with in New York, taught us to go from the visualization of the character to the dialogue and I work within this method.

Mask making is and has been for me a process of story telling. Recently, I gave a workshop at the Chicago Public Library last May for the Asian Pacific Awareness Month. The Chicago Public Library celebrates diversity in Chicago by dedicating particular months to specific cultural groups. May celebrates the Asian-Pacific American community and I hold a mask-making workshop in celebration. The participants in my workshops learn about Beijing Opera masks and make their own personal masks or Chinese masks.

Through my workshop I desire to give the space and freedom for people to tell their own stories. I start with whatever they feel like talking about; they make a mask for someone they care about in the process; I get to know what they think. It fascinates to see the emotions that come to play in the making of a mask. It is fascinating and sometimes heart-wrenching to see what people think when they make these things. It is also really wonderful to see families, community members, students of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

I also presented workshops on mask making for teachers and students at DuSable Museum of African-American History. We created student-centered performances at Pasteur School, because the students of that age enjoy learning while using their bodies while moving and touching the masks. I involve the whole child in the learning process. In the above activities as well as those at Chicago Public Library and The Hyde Park Art Center outreach activities, the students leave with their own masks and a clear story that binds them to their families and cultural histories.

For me, this event was a vital way to make connections with different members of the community. From the people I talk to, it seems there is cultural discontent about the way people relate to each other, treat each other, the amount of respect, the amount of listening, the relationships people make, etc. I also see that people try to create these connections through art. They reach out, they are honest, they attempt to express what they feel.

My experience has taught me that mask making has a healing/cathartic effect on the participating artists. It is similar to what Azar Nafisi refers to as the “saving power of literature.” Literature is the telling of our stories and, in a sense, so is art-making. Telling our stories and sharing our experiences with the community creates a strong sense of identity and meaningful ties with the communities we live and work in. It provides a therapeutic space to explore experiences that make us feel. Art, and the stories it allows one to tell, can help one to subvert and navigate the complicated concepts of nationality, race, even identity.

I believe that art has a magical way of bringing people together. I never felt alone in Beijing, because I was surrounded by artists: Chinese artists, Greek artists, Russians, Iranians, you name it. It always functioned as this wonderful net or cloth that bound, comforted, and nurtured me.

Eleni Vryza graduated from The Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, China. Beijing opera and Chinese operas fascinate her. While she was born in northern Greece, Eleni has roots in Turkey. She was introduced early to painting together with her mother as well as watching Ancient Greek theater and modern theater. At Swarthmore College Eleni completed a bachelor’s degree in Theater studies and English Literature. She also obtained a Master’s of Education from The College of New Jersey. Eleni has lived/studied/taught world languages in France, Austria, Mexico, Israel, Spain, and China and has traveled in Turkey, Egypt, and all over Europe. She is fluent in Spanish, Chinese, Greek, English, French, Italian, Hebrew, and German. Eleni has been living and creating in Chicago over the last four years.