PELAGIA KYRIAZI // AN IMAGE, AN EIDOLON //

8 June - 15 July 2017

Art gallery "ekfrasi - gianna grammatopoulou" presents on Thursday, June 8 2017, a solo exhibition of Pelagia Kyriazi entitled “An Image, an Eidolon", a title that comes from Walt Whitman's poem, "Eidolons".

Drawings with soft white pastels on black paper, mixed media works in India ink, charcoal, acrylics and colorful pastel chips together with unique silkscreens on industrial sandpaper comprise the body of work presented by visual artist PelagiaKyriazi.

The exhibition, which consists of three units, presents the media of drawing in its various versions and generates an interplay between negative-positive. This two-way relationship is expressed through the timeless images of human contact depicted in the interwar transparencies in the painter's family archives and the monotypes on sandpaper featuring the staircase of a house in a garden in Kifissia until it finally meets the eye of the viewer in the portraits unit of the exhibition and releases all its colors.

The colorful portraits entitled "Collector" are a direct reference to the eye of an imaginary collector who is viewing the exhibition thus suggesting a second perspective of viewing.

In the black and white drawings the people-eidolons are involved in social interchange. Promenades on the beach, bathers on the seaside but, at the same time, we are in the realm of the non-recognizable. We are face to face with a reality in reverse, the reality of a world that manifests itself as an X-ray.The sense of the semi-finalized, of the potentiality that is dominant in these works as a parallel reality, aims to define the emotional drawing.

As the painter herself states about her work: "I bring to mind the drawingin the senseof a semi-finalized work, skizze, as Gyzis used to call the drawings, which free you from the finishing of technique. A drawing is your first impression. You can intensify it to the point that you manage to communicate its inception, your inner drive, the familiarity with yourself."

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue (polyptych) created with the kind support of the Molyvos International Music Festival.

Works

View the embedded image gallery online at:
http://ekfrasi-art.gr/main/index.php/en/exhibitions/current-exhibition#sigProIdac7c87de24

Artist CV

Pelagia Kyriazi was born in Athens, Greece. She received her FMA in painting and ceramics at the Athens School of Fine Arts and, in 1993, she went to New York on a Fulbright grant where, along with painting and drawing, her artistic endeavours included digital art media and experimental printmaking on sandpaper. Silkscreens of the artist were selected twice by the International Print Center New York and were exhibited in New York and Chicago. She has shown her work in international art events such as “ Kunst Europa “, Berlin, the 6n Biennial of Drawing and Graphic Arts at the Museum of Gyor, Hungary and at the art fair ART ATHINA. The artist recently participated in the exhibition of ASFA “Plunge in the Digital Culture”. Currently she is participating in the exhibition of the History Museum entitled “The Banner of the University of Athens: Contemporary Visual Approaches”. Solo shows of the artist in Athens and New York were presented in venues as the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation (Eynardou Mansion and Bookstore), the American College of Greece, Galerie 3 and at the New York Public Library 96th Str, the Tenri Cultural Institute and the A.S. Onassis Cultural Center.

Pelagia Kyriazi is active in Athens and New York.