The observation of nature, of the particular elements of the visible reality of space in general - the sea, the desert, the sky, as well as the modern structured environment - and their transformation onto the plane surface of a painting, have been the subject of Opy Zouni's experimentation and studies for thirty years, Narrowing down her pictorial means to a few colours and combining them with black and white or black and yellow or just plain black, framed within horizontal and vertical lines, she elevates nature to a level of catholic harmony, where the dominant element is the pursuit of the concept of the surrounding space through a con- tinuous process of abstraction and simplification. By means of a system of lines and chromatic surfaces, where the relation of one to another is deter- mined through mathematical reasoning, she conveys onto the painting surface what is, for her, a subject for study: the image of the world around us.
Opy Zouni sets oft in the belief that geometry is the fundamental element of every work of the plastic ads. When she creates, her work is founded on mathematics; mathematics, for her, is not confined within a rigid structure and reasoning, which merely provides the essential theoretical basis for the apprehension of the reality that surrounds us; it is also a science which, at every single step, assesses analogies, symmetries, the relation between objects, between groups, between movements.
In Opy Zouni's work, mathematics is developed in a plastic manner an is expressed in geometric forms and pure colours - a pure colour being free of any tonal and plastic gradation - on the plane surface, arranged in logarithmic sequence or symmetry. In her quest of ways to render depth, she studies the problems associated with perspective, illusion, delusion and, by systematically organizing her thoughts through mathematical reasoning and geometry but without ever servilely yielding to their commands, she moulds her ad. Setting out from the question sequence - succession - progress - rhythm - order, she is particularly concerned about the arrangement of the colour surface. As this arrangement develops in space and is combined with her dynamic expressiveness, it leads to the optical and chromatic illusion; an illusion which is amplified through a system of vertical and horizontal stripes. A plane surface can thus give the impression of a curve, the perspective of depth, the illusion of space.
The far from haphazard and usually logarithmic arrangement of the lines verifies the optical balance between negative and positive. These elements are not contrasting and distinct, but connected and perpetual, Through these, Zouni's work tends to transcend the limits of the painting and reach infinity. It is this definite desire of hers to create the vast expanse of the infinite through aself-driven movement that leads Opy Zouni to adopt the idea, the creation, the sequence, the variation. Within these, transcending the boundaries of space and employing intricate combinations, she enhances to the utmost the sense of vastness.
In the infinite and vastness of her paintings, one does not see a human figure: a pictorial representation of absence as a reversal of presence. Perhaps there, at the infinite, where the observer's eyes are led, Man is to be encountered, devastated in his solitude, External solitude, now that people are so close and yet so far apart that they cannot be close to their "neighbour", in the gospel sense, Internal solitude, now that people have been deprived of ideologies and have been left destitute of all purpose and hope.
Opy Zouni was born and raised in Cairo, where she started painting. A Hellene, descended from ancestors of abstract mathematical thinking, she was born in Egypt, the cradle of geometry. In her work, the observer cannot fail to trace both elements, pure mathematics and applied geometry. They say that light is the same, no matter where one might be; this is not the case in Zouni's work. As she had once put it herself, in her early works the light is yellow Egyptian, overflowing with the desert and its vastness; later it turns grey and, eventually, white - Hellenic, wrought by the sea, the sky and the marble. Its presence determines the creation of shadow, depth, a sense of vastness, and takes the artist from the two-dimensional - three-dimensional painting to the three-dimensional - two-dimensional sculpture.
Her paintings, abundant in lines, will invariably lead the observer's eyes to a single point. This point is often interrupted by a vertical plane which is sometimes hollow, sometimes a mirror - a reflection of the world - and, more recently, full of a multitude of pictorial images - flowers, flames, clouds, fields, waves, the sky. These expressionistic elements which, from the particular level, tend to dominate over the whole painting surface, are no less than an expression of fulfilment, a feeling of serenity, the linking of sensibility with reason. Phantasy and discipline, contemplation and impulse, elevate nature to a level of catholic harmony.
I think that it would not be an overstatement if I quoted St. Augustine, as cited by art-critic Françoise-Hélène Brou in a text on Opy Zounl's work: "Wisdom can be detected in the numbers which are inherent in every single thing... The world of nature and the world of ethics are founded on the eternal numbers, and those who can perceive them shall enter the divine world".

Olga Mentzafou-Polyzou
Athens 1995