SG: Which do you think might be the defining similarities and differences in the aesthetics of your recent works, considering your previous work?

DD: There is a change in materiality and message, but it didn’t derive from the need of a certain aesthetics. Foremost, it comes from an inner change of perspective. The fact that a new aesthetics came out of this, concerns me less. Whereas my early work was more explicit, I’m now seeking to have a dialogue with the material, not an imposed monologue. Previously, the works had a certain sense of drama, being perhaps more declamatory, while the creative present is willing to play, cheerfully, joyously. I sometimes perceive my recent work as being very self-ironical, actually.

Signing with STRATA Gallery marks an important moment in my artistic path, from the approach point of view. I somehow stopped following an aesthetic pursuit. I’m now more interested in clogging any clear course.

SG: The topics you’ve addressed in the past years carry a message of responsibility. They are often social themes referring to different crisis situations you’re pointing a finger to. Should we look up for such messages in your latest show, ALLreadymade?

DD: “Axis Mundi”, for example, was for me an attempt to disconnect myself from the figurative as an artistic way, and an alibi for a conceptual approach, by using the symbol and the geometry. I wavered between the objective reality of deforestation, and an ethic inner manifesto which derived. However, both the idea of conceptual sculpture and that of incorporating social messages imposed limitations from which I tried to break free. ALLreadymade marks a new beginning. A creative process with a starting point that requires no finality or purpose. I see it as a journey – the more abstract and full of unknown, the better.

SG: Did you premeditate the works included in the ALLreadymade show, or were they born rather out of free work, material and/or chance?

DD: I usually start working from an idea, which sometimes can be a sign or a state of mind. I then try to find the most suitable ways of expressing that idea. Works are like lines, their course may converge or overlay, sometimes they meet, sometimes they go apart again.

SG: To what extend are you influenced by the exhibition space in selecting the artworks for a show? How did you choose to communicate with the gallery’s space?

DD: The space is very important. We don’t have an education in this matter, we’re not being taught how to relate to the space in the creative process, and furthermore, when developing an exhibition concept. The more I decode and understand a space, the more I feel the need to adapt and adjust systematically. It’s a relationship you boost and witness, between the object and the space, and it determines the starting point of an exhibition. Paradoxically, you get detached from the object, by placing it within a certain different context. And this very detachment may favor the object – by canceling the initial background, the placenta, you extend its perspectives, the cognition range.
Besides, any give space is an unrepeatable (love)story.

SG: Is there a sense of attachment to your artworks? Are you more connected in a nostalgic way to your early works or are you curiously drawn to your latest projects?

DD: I usually don’t feel any attachment to my artworks. There might be a sense of attachment during the creative process, but it ends as soon as I get tired… I’m interested only in the present, I don’t project the future. As for the past, it’s “ALLready” lost. In this sense, I find retrospectives to be sad. So obviously, I am more connected to my recent works.