Jenny Roka by painting, micro sculpture and mixed technique, compose images to meet your gaze, aiming to surprise you.

She taught painting by the noted painter T. Batinakis.

Have participated in group exhibitions and several of her works are in private collections.

She lives and work in Athens.

The creation of this collection of artworks was kindled by her boundless admiration for the art of ancient Greek pottery. Her first encounter with these vessels, in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, was strange: they swiftly faded from her memory, as often happens with certain artifacts that have that eerie quality that renders them almost invisible. However, the subconscious emotion they left behind and her love for the traditional shadow-theatre – eventually made her look at them again, and observe the narrative adventure of these self-contained figures floating in the black or red clay body of an amphora, a crater or a cylix. These vessels, buried for centuries next to the people who used to filled them with water or wine, shatter the silence of time and they beautifully narrate the story of a civilization which for the first time in human history dared to question the “what” and the “how” and to directly face the void of existence. The figures we see in these images – conversing with their gods, competing in athletic games, dropping their swords in ecstasy before the beauty of Helen of Troy, dancing and getting drunk – act not from a wish to escape the fleeting world they find themselves in, but to dive down more deeply within it and grasp its meaning. This series of works seeks to highlight certain moments of innocence and whimsy from those times. These figures give us little information and yet tell so much: they leave much to the imagination, challenging us to be a part of what precisely happens here and now.

The basic materials   are paper and threads. Paper shares some of the innate qualities of the clay: fragility and sturdiness, power and delicacy. Thread – in its primal function- will cloth and convey the pleats. First, she draws the figures and their setting, along with decorative patterns on paper. Then cut out the figures and “dress” them with threads. Finally, she moves them around until they find their proper place. There is something familiar and pleasant in this procedure, for it takes her back in time, when she used to play with puppets. Now as then, she seeks the angle that will place these figures in an interim dreamworld, whence they shall keep telling a story about something that once existed and that shall exist forever.