Katerina Christidi
15 Sep - 29 Oct 2016
Katerina Christidi
The day when his shadow was perhaps at its darkest.
15 September - 29 October 2016
Everyday life is strange, when grown in a strange land.
Thomas Mann, The magic mountain
The initial stimulus for Katerina Christidi’s inspiration for her work is the observation of people's everyday life in their environment, of their relationships, attitudes and behaviors, all these elements who give away the multifarious and contradictory human nature. She then shifts and organizes them again in new narratives enriched by her personal views, placing the characters in situations different then they should originally be.
Her exploration focuses on the creation of a world where vague figures coexist with fragmentary unknown landscapes. The idea behind her work lies on the decomposition and re-composition of a combination of elements which are opposed, added one on top of the other, merge, so they might at the end express an unstable situation between multiple realities.
The artist tries to bring to the surface a sense of oscillation and uncertainty about where we really stand, through a dialogue of different levels of representation. Forms are linked together by a controlled yet unpredictable development, since the construction process -which is vital for her- is involving association and successive layers until the final image is formed. This escalating process allows the creation of a channel between the conscious and the subconscious.
"Katerina Christidi works with black. She uses the tools of a painter to make drawings on large canvases stretched directly on the wall. They are not abstract. They are a figuration of the body and the body of the drawing. She uses charcoal to make the black, attested to by the traces of black dust in her atelier. Her method is to connect ends to ends. She draws, takes notes on bits of paper, finds other images, other notes. Joins them together. And then gets to work on a large drawing. Here we have some of her recipes for drawing. And the texts are a way to get closer to those drawings, to experience them. They create a visual effect, of course. And also a narrative experience in the recognition of oddly familiar images. Then there is still another element. One the artist produces through the physical, narrative, mythical dimensions of the drawings. The sense of touch. Her drawings touch this body of black. They embody the touch. This body, so fragile that if you insist too much, you will break the tip of your nose. Nevertheless, reach out your hand - be touched."
J. Emil Sennewald, Paris, May 2015
Exerpt from the catalogue Les escaliers sont en papier
The day when his shadow was perhaps at its darkest.
15 September - 29 October 2016
Everyday life is strange, when grown in a strange land.
Thomas Mann, The magic mountain
The initial stimulus for Katerina Christidi’s inspiration for her work is the observation of people's everyday life in their environment, of their relationships, attitudes and behaviors, all these elements who give away the multifarious and contradictory human nature. She then shifts and organizes them again in new narratives enriched by her personal views, placing the characters in situations different then they should originally be.
Her exploration focuses on the creation of a world where vague figures coexist with fragmentary unknown landscapes. The idea behind her work lies on the decomposition and re-composition of a combination of elements which are opposed, added one on top of the other, merge, so they might at the end express an unstable situation between multiple realities.
The artist tries to bring to the surface a sense of oscillation and uncertainty about where we really stand, through a dialogue of different levels of representation. Forms are linked together by a controlled yet unpredictable development, since the construction process -which is vital for her- is involving association and successive layers until the final image is formed. This escalating process allows the creation of a channel between the conscious and the subconscious.
"Katerina Christidi works with black. She uses the tools of a painter to make drawings on large canvases stretched directly on the wall. They are not abstract. They are a figuration of the body and the body of the drawing. She uses charcoal to make the black, attested to by the traces of black dust in her atelier. Her method is to connect ends to ends. She draws, takes notes on bits of paper, finds other images, other notes. Joins them together. And then gets to work on a large drawing. Here we have some of her recipes for drawing. And the texts are a way to get closer to those drawings, to experience them. They create a visual effect, of course. And also a narrative experience in the recognition of oddly familiar images. Then there is still another element. One the artist produces through the physical, narrative, mythical dimensions of the drawings. The sense of touch. Her drawings touch this body of black. They embody the touch. This body, so fragile that if you insist too much, you will break the tip of your nose. Nevertheless, reach out your hand - be touched."
J. Emil Sennewald, Paris, May 2015
Exerpt from the catalogue Les escaliers sont en papier