Athina Chroni’s main interests are in portrait and self-portrait photography. She employs black and white materials and the neutral, square format, an approach which, in combination with her choice of subjects, indicates as an important influence the psychological portraits of Diane Arbus. Her subjects are sometimes photographed in a spare, impersonal setting, while at other times they are presented against the background of their own personal environment. Her exposures are not always timed to capture static forms, clearly focused and defined images. On occasion she will protract the exposure to permit action in front of the lens, to capture the fluidity of the human form; at other times she employs multiple exposures, generating semi-transparent human images. Her approach transcends the concept of the portrait as the exact mapping of the human face and offers in its stead the portrait interpreted as the revelation of an inner spiritual world. The sometimes enigmatic organization of space and time in her work is reminiscent of the photographs of Ralph Eugene Meatyard.

Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art / The Permanent Collection, Volume II / Photography / text by Iraklis Papaioannou , Published by the M.M.C.A., Thessaloniki 1999