Opening: Saturday, 9 July 2022
Exhibition duration: 9– 29 July 2022
Location: Art Space / Studio 265, Paroikia, Paros
Curator: Alexios Papazacharias
Participating artists: Chloe Akrithaki, Nikomachi Karakostanoglou, Peggy Kliafa, Marianna Lourba, Efi Haliori
Peggy Kliafa participates in the show with the artworks:
Armour or Slimming Dress – Blue, 2019/22, Empty aluminum blisters and full transparent blisters with slimming and other metabolism issues pills on aluminum and plexiglass surfaces with hanger/question mark, silicone, led light, cable, 105 x 60 x 4,5 cm
Armory Square – Placebo Series – Blue, 2022, Empty aluminum blisters and full transparent blisters with pills on plexiglass surfaces, silicone, led light, cable, 71,8 x 71,8 x 4,5 cm
Microbial Colony – Blue, 2022, Small round printed aluminum foils from the back side of the pills’ blisters on canvas, acrylic sprays, wooden frame, 65 x 65 x 4,5 cm
Microbial Colony – White, 2022, Small round printed aluminum foils from the back side of the pills’ blisters on canvas, acrylic sprays, wooden frame, 65 x 65 x 4,5 cm
Every summer, Art Space / Studio 265 invites old and new friends to Paros to present and admire artworks connected with the island’s unique characteristics. The wind and the waves, the glowing sun, the well-defined shadows, as well as the crisp nights, the cocktails and the music served as inspiration for this exhibition that takes its title from Madonna’s album, “True Blue”. The album came out in the summer of 1986 and its massive hit “La Isla Bonita” talks about how fast the holidays go by on an imaginary island.
But blue is a colour.
True Blue. Azure or cyan, light, dark, deep. Turquoise (almost green), midnight (almost black), cobalt, prussian, ultramarine, indigo. From sky to sea and from night to day, blue can be found in countless variations and in obvious abundance. At the same time, this wide range of blue pigments that we are so used to in our daily life is very rare in nature. It can be found in very few mammals, some exotic birds, several exotic fishes and flowers and it is pretty uncommon in nuts, minerals, precious stones and metals. Even though it is rare as a real material, blue can be found in abundance when we look at the crystal clear water or the bright blue sky. It seems that, in its absence, it never ceases to pour out. Blue probably owes its symbolic meaning, representing infinity, aloofness or the supernatural, to this feature. So it’s no surprise that these uncommon and expensive pigments were used to depict and highlight either divinity or authority, power and wealth. In “True Blue” exhibition the artworks are placed on this particular piece of land surrounded by water called island. A mountain top amidst the dark blue sea that touches the pale blue sky. Photography, painting, assemblage, sculpture form the tools required to measure the distance from the blue colour of infinity to the one visible to the naked eye, as well as from the blue colour of the landscape to the one of the human civilization.
Marianna Lourba’s work approaches formalism through the kaleidoscope. She combines opposed positions in nature but flirty in terms of behaviour like light and darkness, textured or smooth, glossy or mat. Efi Haliori creates clear-cut images that move gracefully between the ambiguity of small and big, far and close, soft and hard. Nikomachi Karakostanoglou follows two different directions. In the first one, she creates images that look like they are made of no more than two brushstrokes which are enough for the whole surface. In the other one that includes three-dimensional objects, she uses the memory of the object as the starting point from which the sculpture gradually takes form through dramatic improvements or divergences. Peggy Kliafa’s work focuses on man’s greatest agony. In her eyes, medicines reveal today’s human condition at its best and at its worst, as well as human achievements and failures. Finally, Chloe Akrithaki’s photographic work mainly explores the issues of time and experience. Her photographs exist either as moments or as durations, like real memories do.