Eleni Azarias is a freshman, but oh – only for one more long, long week. She loves mangoes, overuses dashes, semicolons and any form of punctuation that will elongate sentences, and enjoys (or not?) changing her major at least once a week. She hails from the gorgeous, mango-filled far-off land of Australia and went to a French school for all of twelve years – (notice the dash) which allowed her to gleefully poke fun at her fellow students’ pronunciation of façade (aka “fakkade”), au contraire (aka “en conntrayrre”), and naiveté (aka “nayiivetay”).
Eleni has been attracted to Impressionism since she can remember. Really. She has unabashedly given in to the commercialization of Impressionist art, and is the proud owner of several Impressionist calendars, Monet fridge magnets, and above all, a “disappEARing” Van Gogh mug (as you can judge for yourself). She became interested in Pissarro’s marketplaces and his anarchism after strolling through the charmingly meandering back alleys of Montpellier on a refreshing spring Saturday morning – the jour du marché – dressed in black pants, a black turtleneck and, to top it all off, naturally, a black beret. Well, either that or after flicking through a book on Impressionism in Marquand library in Princeton. You decide.