Moods & Memories at Eleni Koroneou Gallery

Artists: Nel Aerts, Tamina Amadyar, Eleni Bagaki, Eirene Efstathiou, Uman

Exhibition title: Moods & Memories

Venue: Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens, Greece

Date: December 9, 2022 – February 4, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods create memories and memories create moods.

Eleni Koroneou Gallery is pleased to announce the group show Moods & Memories with five female artists of the gallery. The show includes works on paper and collages by Nel Aerts, Tamina Amadyar, Eleni Bagaki, Eirene Efstathiou and Uman.

Nel Aerts series’ Chameleon portrays camouflaged one-eyed creatures in different colours and moods. Either standing or floating those lonely figures appear to be dreaming, skeptical, wondering, being sad or even being bored. Notions of the self, identity and disguise are some of the subjects of Aerts’ practice, often through tragic though humorous fictional characters. Nel Aerts (1987, Turnhout, Belgium) is working in different media such as painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, film and performance.

Tamina Amadyar is showing a new series of watercolours that are drawn from walks in cities with architecture that has resonated with her. Some of them are located in Berlin and some in Dessau, the Bauhaus city. The use of watercolours gives the facades of the buildings a more abstract aspect that could be a recollection or a past memory. Tamina Amadyar (1989, Kabul, Afghanistan) works mainly in the medium of painting.

Eleni Bagaki is presenting a series of collage works under the title Feeling that way. Using collected material and images found in vintage erotic books, naked women are being depicted in nature. Their body parts are slightly hidden behind flowers and plants, shifting the meaning of the female sexuality. Eleni Bagaki’s (1979, Chania, Greece) practice is informed by feminist theories and explores how autobiographical narrative can be related to the collective and the political through various media as text, sound, collage, painting, sculpture, or video.

Domestic stratigraphy is a series of rapidograph drawings from Eirene Efstathiou’s photographs of terracing on Cycladic mountainsides overlayed on lithographs from Formica tabletop patterns (popular in Greece in the 70s and 80s). The works are a meditation on labor and making, and the traces of minor yet vital history on the landscape. The juxtaposition of these two very different patterns proposes land as a domestic space and the memory of labor on the land as monumental. Eirene Efstathiou’s (1980, Athens, Greece) studio practice begins with compiling archival source material, as well as material drawn from deliberate wanderings, as a way to re-narrate minor histories and comment on the collective memory.

Uman’s rich cultural heritage manifests in instinctive shapes and vibrant colours that can be found in the smaller scale works on canvas and on paper of the show. Autobiographical figures, animals, folk elements and talismans driven from her memory and a deeper search for belonging, quickly transform themselves into abstract forms and gestures. Uman (b. 1980, Somalia) is a self-taught artist, working in various media such as painting, drawing and sculptures.

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Moods & Memories, 2022, exhibition view, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens

Uman, Untitled, 2022, Mixed media on paper, 60 x 45 cm