Lito Kattou & Petros Moris at Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Artists: Lito Kattou & Petros Moris

Exhibition title: Teras Terra

Curated by: Despoina Tzanou

Venue: Galeria Duarte Sequeira, Braga, Portugal

Date: July 11 – October 17, 2020

Photography: Adriano Ferreira Borges / all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Formed by theories of non-anthropocentric points of view, Lito Kattou develops a new series of aluminum hybrid figures, a combination of bodily, mechanical and ethereal appearances, that question the idea of how contemporaneity thinks about bodies and its relationship with the natural environment. The works engage with the sculptural potentiality of flatness, processes of embodiment and the transfigurations of material properties within the margins of time and space. Imagery on their aluminum surface hints to their inner world, origins and characteristics. These entities extend through the space, accompanied by various elements frozen in time via thermochemical elaborations that represent a physical reminder of nature, or what used to be.

Petros Moris presents a series of geological landscapes that explore the stratifications of the material, the technological and cultural environments, along the fateful interrelations between natural and social phenomena. Stimulated by symmetrical structures, abstract compositions that resemble faces or masks weave together the social construct of time with geological materiality and digital fabrication. Working with marble sourced from quarries in Aliveri, Ritsona, Tinos and Volos, the artist utilizes archaic techniques and contemporary technologies to develop wall-based inlay works that employ the painterly aspects of marble in order to assemble word-based palindromes and anagrams. Embedded into geological matter, these language-constructs reconfigure and fracture perceptions of meaning, materiality and time.

Lito Kattou and Petros Moris create works in dialogue that explore the entangled and transformative relationships between geological matter, language, bodies and subjectivity. Configured through both the embracing and the distancing from anthropocentric perspectives, the exhibition narrates a nonlinear account of juxtapositions and assemblages of cultural and material time.

Lito Kattou (b. Nicosia, 1990) is a visual artist based in Athens. She is a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London with an MA in Sculpture and the Athens School of Fine Arts. Kattou is the recipient of the Ducato Prize 2019 and the New Positions Award for Art Cologne 2018 and she was the invited artist for the 89plus Google Residency curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Simon Castets at the Google Cultural Institute in Paris, 2017. Lito Kattou ́s practice negotiates understandings of materiality and subjectivity through a composition of practices, spanning from digital fabrication to thermochemical elaborations.
Engaging with the sculptural potentiality of flatness, the artist explores the limits of and the relationship between sculpture and painting. The works examine what comes before and after the body, the possibility of its presence and absence, its representation and its abstraction, as well as its relationship to the natural environment.

Petros Moris (b. Lamia, 1986) is an artist living in Athens. He is a graduate of the Goldsmiths University of London and the Athens School of Fine Arts. He was an artist in residence at Delfina Foundation in 2020, an ARTWORKS fellow in 2018, an Onassis Foundation Scholar, and has been nominated for the Deste Prize 2015. His work explores the dynamics between manifestations of memory, entropic processes, and the anthropogenic concept of the future. This inquiry looks at the stratifications of geo-archeological matter, infrastructural networks, ancient and urban mythology, as well as the fateful intersections between natural and social phenomena. His practice develops mainly through sculptural production and writing, as well as through a network of artistic, curatorial and publishing collaborations.

TERAS TERRA, 2020, Installation view at Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Petros Moris, Arrow Moment II, 2020, 57 x 38 cm, Watercolor on UV print on paper

TERAS TERRA, 2020, Installation view at Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Petros Moris, Arrow Moment XII, 2020, 57 x 38 cm, Watercolor on UV print on paper

Petros Moris, Arrow Moment I, 2020, 57 x 38 cm, Watercolor on UV print on paper

Petros Moris, Arrow Moment X, 2020, 57 x 38 cm, Watercolor on UV print on paper

TERAS TERRA, 2020, Installation view at Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Petros Moris, Membrane (Metamorphosis I), 2020, 82 x 50 x 20 cm, Marble, nickel-plated copper electroformed PLA

Petros Moris, Membrane (Metamorphosis II), 2020, 82 x 50 x 20 cm, Marble, nickel-plated copper electroformed PLA

Petros Moris, Membrane (Swarm I), 2020, 40 x 50 x 20 cm, Marble, nickel-plated copper electroformed PLA

Petros Moris, Membrane (Swarm II), 2020, 40 x 50 x 20 cm, Marble, nickel-plated copper electroformed PLA

TERAS TERRA, 2020, Installation view at Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Petros Moris, Membrane (Swarm II), 2020 (detail), 40 x 50 x 20 cm, Marble, nickel-plated copper electroformed PLA

TERAS TERRA, 2020, Installation view at Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Lito Kattou, Carrier, 2020, 220 x 138 x 80 cm, Aluminum, steel, permanent ink, acrylic paint, nickel-plated copper

Petros Moris, DEEPSPEED, 2020, Marble, aluminum honeycomb panel, 250 x 150 x 2 cm

Lito Kattou, Dreamer, 2020, 210 x 131,4 x 100 cm, Aluminum, permanent ink, acrylic paint, electroformed copper, nickel-plated copper

Lito Kattou, Dreamer, 2020 (detail), 210 x 131,4 x 100 cm, Aluminum, permanent ink, acrylic paint, electroformed copper, nickel-plated copper

TERAS TERRA, 2020, Installation view at Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Lito Kattou, Walker, 2020, 220 x 125.7 x 95 cm, Aluminum, steel, permanent ink, acrylic paint, electroformed copper, nickel-plated copper

Lito Kattou, Walker, 2020 (detail), 220 x 125.7 x 95 cm, Aluminum, steel, permanent ink, acrylic paint, electroformed copper, nickel-plated copper

Petros Moris, EARTH HEART, 2020, Marble, aluminum honeycomb panel, 250 x 150 x 2 cm

Petros Moris, EYE SEES EYE, 2020, Marble, aluminum honeycomb panel, 250 x 150 x 2 cm

Petros Moris, EYE SEES EYE, 2020 (detail), Marble, aluminum honeycomb panel, 250 x 150 x 2 cm

TERAS TERRA, 2020, Installation view at Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Lito Kattou, Sky Diver, 2020, 205 x 150 x 50 cm, Aluminum, steel, permanent ink, acrylic paint

TERAS TERRA, 2020, Installation view at Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Lito Kattou, Weaver, 2020, 203 x 150 x 58 cm, Aluminum, permanent ink, acrylic paint, nickel-plated copper

Lito Kattou, Weaver, 2020 (detail), 203 x 150 x 58 cm, Aluminum, permanent ink, acrylic paint, nickel-plated copper

Petros Moris, LAMINA LEVEL ANIMAL, 2020, Marble, aluminum honeycomb panel, 250 x 150 x 2 cm

TERAS TERRA, 2020, Installation view at Galeria Duarte Sequeira

Lito Kattou, Hunter´s T-shirt, 2020, 85 x 71 cm, Electroformed copper

Lito Kattou, Hunter, 2020, 195 x 150 x 58 cm, Aluminum, steel, acrylic paint, electroformed copper, dried thistles

Lito Kattou, Hunter, 2020 (detail), 195 x 150 x 58 cm, Aluminum, steel, acrylic paint, electroformed copper, dried thistles