This September, Artereal Gallery is thrilled to return to Sydney Contemporary with a solo presentation by Artist and Psychotherapist Noula Diamantopoulos. As part of the art fair, Noula will present a performance artwork, titled QUEST, in which members of the public are invited to participate. First performed at Sydney Contemporary as part of the ‘Director’s Choice program’ in 2013, QUEST returns to the art fair, more than a decade later, in an encore performance which will be accompanied by a new video artwork and a series of text-based neon artworks.

Since 2011, Artist and Psychotherapist Noula Diamantopoulos has embraced the medium of performance art as a conceptual and enigmatic vehicle for her continuing search for meaning, understanding and interpretation of the human psyche and the inner-self. QUEST is an interactive and collaborative social project focused on community involvement and engagement which draws on relational aesthetics and the artist’s background as a practicing psychotherapist. 

QUEST is an endurance performance, which will run each day throughout the fair, coinciding with the art fair opening hours. Visitors to the fair are encouraged to book in advance to secure their chance to participate in the performance.

Visitors to Sydney Contemporary art fair will be invited to sit down individually with the artist and engage in QUEST – a silent, handwritten conversation of questions only. Each participant will initiate this dialogue by posing a written question to the artist. Noula will then in turn respond with her own written question. And so the dialogue continues – slowly and in silence. Until, upon the tenth question, the written conversation of questions concludes.

This unique process of Q&Q calls participants to be curious, to think outside of the box, and consider if the answers we seek can actually be revealed in the questions we ask. The challenging format of this performance belies the answer driven society in which live today. By deliberately focusing on the question rather than the answer, the performance forces participants to stop, pause and reflect – a process which in many instances leads individuals to the realization that the initial question with which they began, is not in fact, the real question which lies at the heart of the matter after all. An antidote to contemporary society’s obsessive compulsion to constantly find and focus on answers, QUEST re-focuses our attention on the importance of the questions we ask in life.

Through the experimental dialogue of the performance, emphasis is placed on the importance of learning to question yourself, others and everything around you. Subverting the commonly held concept that the stories or answers behind an artwork can be found within the work itself, the focus here is fixated on the performance and the participant. Rather than claiming to hold all the answers, the artist concentrates instead on the idea that the answers to all of our questions lie within ourselves. We are the source of our own answers.

Inevitably, the performance often brings to the surface personal and emotional issues of which the participant was unaware. Epiphanies seem to occur frequently throughout the course of the performance. The symbolism of the coloured ink splots, which the artist has in preparation for the performance splashed across the pages upon which the written dialogue is recorded, are significant visual references to the idea of the Rorschach test with its psychological overtones.

As a performance, QUEST is essentially an interactive and collaborative social project or experiment focused on community involvement and engagement. Drawing on the ideas behind relational aesthetics, the outcome of Noula’s performance is the creation of a social environment which brings people together to participate in a shared activity (or quest). The artwork is not about an encounter between the viewer and a static art object, but is instead an encounter between the artist and audience.

By redefining our concept of art, Noula’s performance suggests that artists can be facilitators, rather than just the makers of objects. Art can therefore become an interaction or exchange of information between artist and audience – in this case a common quest to ‘get to the heart of the matter’ undertaken by both artist and participant. Marked by its open-endedness, the performance becomes about providing participants with new ways of thinking – a new way of viewing the questions that arise in our life. In this sense, through the exchange of information the artist gives the audience access to powerful tools which provide them with the means by which to change their world.

Over the last decade Noula Diamantopoulos has also been working with text-based neon artworks – as an extension of her QUEST performances. Continuing her exploration of the human psyche, Noula Diamantopoulos’ latest series of neon artworks, crafted especially for Sydney Contemporary, delves into the complexities of love. These luminous text-based works build on a recurring theme within her practice, contemplating the fluid ways in which we move in and out of love. They are meditations on the desires we hold for one another, the boundaries we cannot cross, and the intricate dance between independence and interdependence. Through their quiet yet striking presence, these artworks draw attention to the push and pull of human connection—an ongoing negotiation between wanting and not wanting, between safety and expectation.

As both an artist and psychotherapist, Noula approaches love with a deep understanding of its challenges and the relational nature of those challenges. Her neon works evoke questions, not directly, but through their ambiguity. The text they display offers no simple truths; instead, they encourage viewers to pause and reflect on their own relationships, their needs, and the unspoken tensions that arise within them. In this way, these artworks act as visual companions to her QUEST performance, where the power of inquiry drives the interaction. The neon statements, with their elusive meanings, challenge us to look inward, urging us to ask the unasked and confront the quiet uncertainties that shape our connections with others.

Presented alongside these neons is Noula Diamantopoulos’ new video artwork titled Quest(ion), marking her first venture into video as a contemporary art form. This dynamic piece seamlessly continues and amplifies the themes explored in her neon artworks, using the medium of video to delve deeper into the complexities of love, relationships, and the power of inquiry. The video is set against a backdrop that evokes the vastness of the cosmos, symbolizing the endless and unknowable nature of the universe, mirroring the infinite questions that arise in our search for meaning within our connections. At both the beginning and end of the video, the symbol of the monad—a representation of unity—appears, grounding the work in the idea of oneness before it splits into brackets, visually echoing the brackets featured in her neon texts. These brackets serve as a metaphor for the boundaries and spaces within relationships, further drawing a connection between the visual language of the video and the conceptual framework of her neon series. Through Quest(ion), Noula extends her ongoing exploration of relational challenges and the profound impact of questions, inviting viewers into a meditative reflection on the nature of love and the universe. Ultimately, the work underscores the power of questions as not just tools for discovery, but as catalysts for deeper understanding and connection.

Rhianna Melhem
Curator