Passionate about colour, Daphne Stamouli Simoncioni’s bold colours and striking contrasts pay homage to her Mediterranean heritage. In her varied and diverse approaches to creating art, she explores her subconscious thoughts through automatic drawings and writings which she brings to life in her paintings using different materials and mediums. Experimentation is a fundamental part of her practice; a large majority of her work is dictated by spontaneity yet unified with recurring themes of identity and social issues. She juxtaposes elements of reality with surrealism to produce visually intriguing compositions which draw the attention of the eye. There is always an intention in Daphne’s pieces. ‘’I aim for my paintings to either encourage the viewer to pause and contemplate the possible message / question I am presenting, or to be an escape and relief from the chaos of life’’. As a result of the pandemic, physical contact and social interactions have been limited and strictly controlled. Responding to this as an artist Daphne has placed an emphasis on exploring texture and celebrating the sense of touch in her artwork, portraying this with self-made texture pastes. ‘’Texture draws you in, then holds you captive. I like to view the paint as more of a sculptural element in my paintings; something that can be manipulated and shaped. It is interesting to think about surfaces with thick texture as having their own reality and the paint itself as becoming the work of art as opposed to just being the window to an illusionistic world’’. Her dynamic but varied approach sees her use her hands rather than a brush to apply the paint, as well as having no contact with the paint at all by throwing, flicking, and pouring the paint with sweeping arm movements likened to Jackson Pollock and Action Painting. Daphne is currently attending the University of Arts London, studying Fine Art Painting. Her artwork has recently been shown in Brick Lane Gallery’s ‘Abstract Art’ Exhibition in London.