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I…Loop de Loop…

About the artist

Steve Gianakos was born in New York in 1938 and studied at the Pratt Institute. He began developing his artistic language in the mid-1960s, in the midst of the Pop Art explosion. He was awarded major prizes and fellowships, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (1995) and the Pollock-Krasner Prize (1996). His works are included in the most prestigious American public collections—MoMA, the Guggenheim, the New York Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Neuberger Museum, the Contemporary Arts Museum (Houston), the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Museum (Chicago), the University Museum (Berkeley), the Judith Rothschild Contemporary, the Chase Manhattan Bank —as well as the CNAP collections in France. He has presented his work in more than thirty solo exhibitions worldwide: Guggenheim, PS1 (MoMA) and the Leo Castelli, Marian Goodman and Barbara Gladstone galleries. He has participated in numerous group shows with other major American artists: MoMA, Brooklyn Museum and Queens Museum in New York and Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht. In 2017, the Musée des beaux arts de Dole in France, held a large retrospective exhibition of his oeuvres.

About the exhibition

Steve Gianakos, one of the most important American artists of today, presents at CITRONNE his latest work, large-scale works of 2022. This section is also accompanied by six earlier works, references to his previous work.

Gianakos' work is provocative work that refuses to fit into categories - pop art, surrealism, minimalism. Characteristic of his work are powerful images and narratives that evoke surprise, disbelief, bewilderment and even threat to the viewer. The artist builds his narratives with seemingly disparate elements. He renegotiates, in a personal subterranean way, the boundaries between the personal and the social, the innocent and the perverse; contradictions which, however, converse and confuse. This is a multi-layered work where the titles the artist gives to his works often function as a complement to the image. The viewer is invited to decode an endless game of slang references, anagrams, deliberate misspellings. Steve Gianakos has distinct references, but an indistinct reading. He transforms reality with caustic humor. Sexual innuendo dominates, the demystification of every social norm. The artist forces the viewer to decide the limits himself.

The central figure in Steve Gianakos' exhibition I...Loop de Loop... at CITRONNE Gallery is a non-binary figure, a male face with a tweezed moustache placed on different female bodies. As noted by Professor of Art History Thanasis Moutsopoulos, in his essay in the exhibition catalogue, "for the first time in Gianakos' colourful universe, gender-bender appears so strongly. In a way it is a natural continuation of his earlier work, where the dissolution and deconstruction of forms were prominent. Equally (the gender-bender) is projected as a natural continuation because of the sexual liberation that has always characterized his work. After all, perhaps the most characteristic element of the artist's work has always been the questioning and dissolution of stereotypes. Steve Gianakos' work, in 2023, appears in its most dense and complex form. Gianakos has expanded and diversified his critique of the American Dream, while seeming to listen to the sweeping social and anthropological changes that have been taking place for some years now. I think it will be a phase in his historical trajectory that we will be returning to regularly in the future..."

Steve Gianakos' exhibition is part of CITRONNE Gallery commitment to present in its space important artists of the Greek diaspora. It represents the spirit of the glocal, i.e. the relationship between locality and global networks. Solo exhibitions of artists of Greek origin (Konstantinos Xenakis, Chris Gianakos and Steven Antonakos) have been presented in the past. These artists offer a perspective that is not 'Greek'. But in their works there are elaborated expressions of patrilineal, with obvious or unobvious references to the cultural norms of distant origin, the "homeland" - an ideal reality that permeates the generations. The dual cultural identity reproduces, reconstitutes and sometimes demolishes the usual stereotypes, social or historical.

TANGRAM

About the artist

Dimitris Anastasiou was born in Athens in 1979. He studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts (A.S.F.A.), under professor Chronis Botsoglou. He has presented his paintings in four solo shows (“Tangram” in CITRONNE-Athens gallery in 2022, “A=-A” in ena gallery in 2018, “Storied Pictures” in 2012 and “Paintings Representing Paintings“ in 2009 in kaplanon gallery) and he has participated in over 50 group exhibitions in Greece, Russia and Cyprus and in international art fairs in Greece, Spain, Switzerland and Germany. His graphic novel “A=-A” is published in English by Jonathan Cape and in Greek by Kaleidoscope Publications.

About the exhibition

Dimitris Anastasiou presents a series of 19 modular/polyptychs works whose main axis is the narrative element, which is consciously left open to multiple interpretations. The artist narrates and shares a personal version of reality. Viewers are prompted to participate, to create other personal versions, namely, to interpret the narrative or even modify it. As it happens by definition in Art, there is no single and precise reading of artworks, and artworks have as many meanings and readings as there are viewers. This is what the title of Anastasiou’s exhibition (Tangram) suggests from the very beginning. As in the Chinese puzzle (Tangram), these modular artworks are presented in a specific version and arrangement, which, however, can be altered partially or entirely and thus overturn the original narrative.

His works are representational and realistic - the outcome of powerful drawing and outstanding painterly dexterity. His realism depicts and refers to everyday images, to familiar moments-testimonials. However, their ensemble-polyptych structure creates a different -vague and destabilizing- reality: a blend of truths, illusions, utopias, controversial circumstances, questions left unanswered, and uncertainty. Thus, the “realistic” rendering of everyday life evolves into a reflection of existential demands with ambiguous answers and incomprehensible conclusions. The interpolated gaps introduce the arbitrary transition from one space to another and from one time to another. Thus, his artworks become painting frames in a staged, almost cinematic, presentation.
In this rendering, Dimitris Anastasiou becomes an active participant and presents himself “in person” - as Hitchcock used to do; he reminds us that he is as much a director-observer as an actor. Moreover, Anastasiou’s appearances-interventions reveal esoteric layers of memory hidden behind identifiable aspects of a practically anonymous “photographed” everyday life. Urban life, the “superficiality” of people’s interaction, and the ambiguity of human existence accumulate and create mnemonic constructions which impose themselves on the subconscious in an almost imperative fashion.

The artist tries to distance himself and, of course, to distance the viewer from this enclosed reality made of fragments and scraps of collective or individual life, but also of the material of dreams which defy rationality. They are single-layered fragmentary memories mixed with frustrated feelings of alienation and isolation. Anastasiou’s “Doll’s house,” just like Ibsen’s, “encases” the main character in a fragile reality-utopia. From the false safety of anonymity amidst the crowd, the artist escapes on an unsafe course, roaming towards the much-sought truth.
Anastasiou deals with the same questions in all his exhibitions. He portrays ambiguity, doubt, delusion, pseudonormality, and, ultimately, the concealed emptiness. He envelops reality with a seemingly easy narrative which, however, just like in tales or role-playing games, entails threat and fear. The artist sounds the eternal “Alarm Signal” of Antonis Samarakis in a world in danger.

My Caves

About the artist

Panos Famelis, born in 1979 is an artist and independent curator living and working in Athens, on various media ranging from painting, sculpture, drawing, installations, performances and theater. He is the founding member of Under Construction group. He has curated solo and group exhibitions, including: ‘’A letter to Esme’’ & ‘’No Land’’, a two Women Solo Show (Crux Gallery Athens), “Grounded” (Re-Culture Festival), "Coney Island" (Ersi's Gallery), "Art is hard", (Festival Athens - Thessaloniki), "Black Jack 21 artists" (Rhodes Casino) and "Oasis" (Skironion Museum, Athens). He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad and his work is included in museums and private collections.

About the exhibition

The solo exhibition of Panos Famelis "My Caves" includes a series of "landscapes" and sculptures in abstract forms. In this group of artworks, the artist exclusively uses pencils, graphites, charcoal and dry pastels on paper.

It concerns a study on writing and drawing "on paper", which was formed over the last three years. Through a cluster of representations and abstract forms, an "eerie" image is created, between a realistic and a transcendental world.

Landscapes of horizons and skies (skyscapes) are combined with wall sculptures made of paper, which the artist defines as "sculptural drawings". In this way, he emphasizes his visual research in regards to the relationship between abstraction and representation and, mainly, the relationship between two and three dimensions, which characterizes almost all aspects of his works.

These works remain in an intermediate place between sculpture and painting, mainly between time and space. Essentially, this body of work imprints timeless and colorless moments which potentially are day and night together; when the visible light comes simultaneously from the sun and the moon. There are moments when light becomes dark and vice versa.

The main stimulus for the creation of this particular series is music and poetry. They shape the conceptual essence of the works, as well as the pulse-rhythm which is emitted through the gesture of writing.

This writing is born through something paradoxical, a black imprint. It is like the trace left by the pencil which, when applied with a manual insistence, results in producing luminous surfaces and in a sense, becomes "self illuminating". It is, in other words, a mental and physical process of friction within the black, which creates flashes of light.

Who Will Fight the Dragon?

About the exhibition

Alekos Kyrarinis and Nikos Podias draw from the shared references of their youth and meet up in a joint exhibition, a visual consonance with the dragon as its theme. The motive and the aim of this exhibition is to highlight these two visual worlds, which, albeit clearly dissimilar as regards the circumstances, can be seen as one. And this living circumstance interacts with this visible affinity.

Their works are a blend of visual coincidences and divergences. In the context of this coexistence, it is worth mentioning that they also converge on issues that define them from the very beginning. It is all about the correlation and the quota of the essence of charm and the uncanny. This is their meeting point and reveals a united stance against the archetypical.

“I’m deep down a matter of light,” wrote George Seferis (On a Winter Sunbeam, IV). Alekos Kyrarinis builds light as a kind of geography. He persistently produces correlations of forces that organise our vision like calligraphic spreads. Nikos Podias’ works meet the light and go beyond reciprocally. They weave the finest visual flair. At their center is the handicraft itself, which is filtered through feeling and turns into philosophy.

In(de)finite Selfhoods II

About the artists

Chiderah Bosah Samuel (b.2000) is a self taught contemporary visual artist whose flair for art incepted at a very tender age of replicating -with pencil on paper- any visual figures he found in books and comics. This early and random interest in art eventually metamorphosed into a full-fledged career for this Port-Harcourt based Nigerian visual artist. Growing up in Africa, and with the common narrative incumbent on a typical black person, Bosah had always wanted to communicate these everyday experiences- the struggles and blessings- from his own standpoint. He uses art as an outlet not only to express himself but also to becocome a voice of the people. Currently exploring the medium of oil on canvas, his genre of art spans across figurative representation, simplified realism and portraiture, employing them as a means to mostly depict the resilient lives of Africans in the motherland. The singularity in Chiderah’s style of painting is the pronounced use of calm and pale hues to consummate his peculiar niche. Chiderah Bosah’s works have been exhibited in some major fairs across Africa, Europe and the United States.

Panos Charalampous (b.1956) is an artist living and working in Athens. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Athens under Nikos Kessanlis. He has participated in international exhibitions, including: 58th Biennale Arte, Venice, 2019 / Voice-o-graph & Flatus Vocis, documenta14, Athens and Kassel, 2017 / Genii Loci. Greek art from 1930 since today, Saint Petersburg, 2016 / White House Biennial, Varna, 2016 / Breakthrough, ARCO, Madrid, 2004 / Eidos, Besançon, 2004 / Copenhagen – European Capital of Culture, 1996 / Ogrody, Poznań, 1996 / Kunst-Europa, Visual European Landscape, Berlin, 1991 / Glasgow – European Capital of Culture, 1990 / Οut of limits, Poznan, 1990 / 3rd Biennale of Young Artists from Mediterranean Europe, Barcelona, 1987. Some of his notable solo shows include: Αquis submersus, Athens, 2014-15 / Tobacco Area, 1986 – 2011, Athens, 2011 / Voice-O-Graph, Athens, 2006-2007 / Phonopolis, Athens, 2003-2004 / Psychagogia II, Athens, 2001 / 1496–2000 / como humo se va, Athens, 1999-2000 / Psychagogia I (Recreation), Athens & Thessaloniki, 1997 / ΙΧΘΥΣ, Athens, 1995 / Concerning fishing, Athens, 1992 / Τobacco story, Βerlin,1991, Athens,1990,1988.

Léllé Demertzi (b.1993) graduated from the School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens in 2017. She also studied acting at the Athens Conservatory Drama School. She completed the MA Raumstrategien (Spatial Strategies) at Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee in July 2019. In September 2020, she completed a 12-Month Internship at the International Program of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. In 2020 she was awarded the ARTWORKS Fellowship for Visual Arts, funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. She has presented her work (performance, video, installation, photomontage) in solo and group exhibitions in Athens, Berlin, Zurich and Luzern, Salzburg, Accra, and New York. She is part of the artist duo “Reservoir Peacocks”, advocating for unapologetic female empowerment. Recurring matters in her artistic practice which begins from the research of the body, are identity, displacement and the need for belongingness, the ‘self’ and ‘the other’, the in-between spaces, language and silence, memory, presence and absence, as well as the scars and the stars in the digital era.

Nicole Economides (b. 1992) is an artist and independent curator based in Athens and New York. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons, The New School and a BFA from the Department of Fine Arts and Art Sciences at the University of Ioannina (2015). Economides is a recipient of the Gerondelis Foundation Scholarship, the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant for Painters and the IBM Grant for Artists in New Media. Her work has been shown in exhibitions in Greece such as Faces of a Hero, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) & Lincoln Center, New York City & Athens, Back to Athens 7, Cheapart (2020), and Inspire: Effective Spaces, the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA) (2015). She has participated in multiple group shows in New York such as Life-Giving Art: 9 Women Artists of the Diaspora, CUNY (2020) and Beneath Them Was Forever, Westbeth Gallery (2019). She was an artist in residence at the Agora Collective, Berlin in late 2016. She has participated as a guest juror for the 2022 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards presented by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. The artist also maintains a collaborative practice with Natalia Almonte, Paradoxluxe, a collective that critically engages the reductive perceptions of Greece and Puerto Rico. They co-curated the exhibition, We Are Here To Serve You (2020) at the Arnold & Sheila Aronson Galleries in Manhattan, that is traveling to Pública: in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2022). She also co-curated the group exhibition What Is Real? with Natalia Almonte and Tunie Betesh which was on view at The Real House in Brooklyn, NY in 2021.

Panos Famelis (b. 1979) is an artist and independent curator living and working in Athens, on various media ranging from painting, sculpture, drawing, installations, performances and theater. He is the founding member of Under Construction group. He has curated solo and group exhibitions, including: ‘’A letter to Esme’’ & ‘’No Land’’ Two Women Solo Show (Crux Gallery Athens), “Grounded”, Re-Culture Festival, “Coney Island” ( Ersi’s Gallery), “Art is hard”, Festival, Athens – Thessaloniki, “Black Jack 21 artists” (Rhodes Casino) and “Oasis” (Skironion Museum, Athens). He had solo and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad, his work is included in museums and private collections.

Courage K. Hunke (b.2000) is a contemporary experimental artist who resides in Ashaiman, Tema. His practices involve the use of acrylic on canvas as well as graphite. He is a member of the Artemartis collective based in Accra, Ghana. His works were recently exhibited at the “Birds of a Feather” exhibition, a collaboration between Phillips Auction House and Artemartis in London. His art is influenced by the stories of everyday Ghanaian women and children.

Cédric Kouamé (b.1992) is a multimedia artist, DJ and radio host (also known as African Diplomat) born in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. He holds a certificate in Communication and has studied performance and installation in Brussels. He was also trained at the project space Klaym in Abidjan, where he was mentored by photographers Joana Choumali and Flurina Rothenberger. Additionally, he’s done several residencies and workshops with sculptors Kafana Soro and Daniel Bamigbadé. Currently living and working between Brussels and Abidjan, he divides his practice between sculpture, photography and performative activations. His photographic work consists of street portraiture, architecture photography – mostly shot on 35mm films – and a collection of damaged positives and negatives, which he started in 2012. Most of those pictures are reflecting the clash between vernacular and modernism, the impact of this clash on the Ivorian social environment and the idea that a photo even damaged will always retract an emotion or a story to its owner.

Alekos Kyrarinis (b. 1976) was raised on the island of Tinos, the place of his origin. He worked with his father, Yiannis kyrarinis, who was a sculptor in marble, from the age of eleven until he entered the Athens School of Fine Arts in 1997. He studied there between 1997 and 2003, in the studios of Dimitris Mytaras and Yiannis Psychopedis. He has illustrated the books: “Alpha Group Calendar 2003”, “Verifying the night», “Encima del subsuelo / Above the subsoil”, “Drip from the tiles” and the Issues No 1, 2 and 3 of the magazine “New Responsibility”. He collaborates with the magazine “Shaft” and the cultural space “Baumstrasse”. He has published a short essay book about painting entitled “Questions to Nefeli” from Nefeli publications, Athens, 2011. He has had solo and group exhibitions in Athens, Tinos, Poros, Barcelona and Brussels. He lives and works in Athens.

Ebenezer Nana Bruce (b. 1988) is a figurative and portrait painter who lives and works in Accra, Ghana. After graduating from Ghanatta College of Art and Design in 2012, he has been practicing as a full-time artist, experimenting with tools and materials, and investigating, researching and experiencing the life behind the spirited crowds and individuals around him. By doing so, he unearths the latest trends in his country, identifies the topics he would like to address, and paints a picture of contemporary Ghanaian society. As an artist he feels he has a vast responsibility to culture and society: to uplift his country through his medium by creating awareness of situational circumstances, by addressing issues that impact us all and by provoking questions that lead discussions around solutions. Ultimately, Nana Bruce offers the observer an inside look of the society through his eyes, both as an artist and a citizen. On the canvas, he applies thick strokes of acrylic paint in an impressionist technique to visualize his narrative.

Dessislava Terzieva (b. 1989, Sofia) is a Bulgarian-American contemporary artist based between Detroit and Sofia. She earned a BA in Political Science from Oakland University and an MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2021 where she won the Museum Purchase Award and her work was accessioned into the permanent collection of Cranbrook Art Museum. Before attending Cranbrook, Terzieva made a name for herself as a prominent figure in the Detroit art scene, exhibiting in off-site locations, curating independent art spaces, and executing interactive and immersive installations in the public sphere. She has exhibited in the United States and internationally, including: ART-O-RAMA in Marseille, France; KO-OP in Sofia, Bulgaria; College for Creative Studies Center Gallery in Detroit, Michigan; Sculpture Center in Cleveland, Ohio; Aether Haha in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Huron Art Space in San Francisco, California; Mönchskirche in Salzwedel, Germany, Guck mal Günther, Kunst in Lenzburg, Switzerland, International Biennale of Santorini in Santorini, Greece; Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She has been awarded a residency at Hestia (Serbia), Bedstuy Art Residency (New York), Atelierhaus Hilmsen (Germany), and World of Co (Bulgaria). In 2021, she founded FIDANA Foundation, a non-profit organization facilitating contemporary art and interventions in public spaces using pre-existing infrastructure.

Adonis Volanakis (b. 1976) studied/ researched in Wimbledon School of Art, Central Saint Martins, Aalto University, University of Athens and New York University. His visual practice is a collaborative amalgam of fine and performing arts, human relationships and aesthetics, poetry and politics. Since 2003 his work focuses in herstories and since 2006 he facilitates blind date, a togethering collaborative platform. Adonis creates installations, exhibitions, community based public art projects and performances: USA (Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, Dixon’s Place, Kimmel Galleries, etc.), in UK (Royal Opera House-Covent Garden, National Theatre, etc.), in Switzerland (Archeological Museum/ Basel, Kaskadenkondensator); in Georgia (History Museum of Tbilisi); in Greece (DOCUMENTA 14, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, State Museum of Contemporary Art, European Cultural Centre of Delphi, Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, National Theatre, Greek National Opera, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Benaki Museum, Cacoyannis Foundation, Athens Biennial) and in France, Canada, Finland, Czech Republic etc. Creating safe spaces for exchange and creativity is part of Adonis’ artistic practice and since 2005 he has being teaching and/or researching nonstop in universities in Greece, France, USA. Currently is an Assistant Professor at Cyprus University of Technology. Foundations that support his work Fulbright, Onassis, London Institute, Arts and Humanities Research Board/UK, B&E Goulandris, Propondis and Leventis.

Emmanuel Kwaku Yaro (b. 1995) is a Ghanaian contemporary artist who resides in Labadi, Accra. He has been a practicing artist for over six years and has a number of group exhibitions to his name, working with notable institutions including Alliance Française d’Accra. Yaro has also had a solo exhibition in the African Regent Hotel in Accra which also resulted in growth in the interest in his works, both locally and internationally. He has also been involved in a number of group exhibitions with Efie Gallery in Dubai and Phillips Auction House in London. He is a member of the Artemartis collective in Accra. Inspired by a range of artists like Georges Seurat, Marie-Guillemine Benoist and Sami Bentil, Yaro‘s research and development practices go beyond the limitation of his five senses, and his works are a testament to his passion for detail.

About the exhibition

The group exhibition In(de)finite Selfhoods was initiated by CITRONNE Gallery as a research project to detect and bring forth new voices of contemporary, emerging, international artists. The point of departure for the dialogue were matters of identity, collectivity, cultural background, local and global genealogies of thought and creation, art movements and art histories.

The routes of communication and collaboration that create linkeages between the 12 international and Greek artists led to the first installment of the exhibition In(de)finite Selfhoods (4 June – 18 July), which inaugurated the gallery's Summer Program in Poros. The exhibition which assembled artworks in a variety of media spanning from painting to photography and installations, bridged discourses from different cultures, geographical locations, generations, singularities, artistic investigations and practices. The show in Poros provided for many of the artists the opportunity to meet, to share and to exchange, to be inspired from each other, and to construct in-between spaces.

The osmosis between the artists leads to the conceptual yet organic continuation of the exhibition in Athens, as a sequence that expands, broadens and delves into the artistic dissents. With the experience of the first show, a new series of artworks wishes to illmuminate and to decipher the realms, the roots, the causes, and the aspirations of our “glocal” collectivity.

Chiderah Bosah (NI) contributes two female portraits in pale purple hues that allude to the daily struggles and the resilience of Nigerian youth. Matters of representation motivate the practice of the young artist, who aims to spolight the underrepresented and invisible voices. Interpreting the stereotype of “the strong black woman”, Bosah either directs Sonia's gaze right towards the onlooker, challenging them with her strength, or he averts Daisy's gaze by portraying her tender and more vulnerable side. Despite the darker composition of colours, a light shines from within his subjects, who are inspired by his close social circle.

The series Tobacco Archive by Panos Charalampous (GR) functions as a collage of material inner landscapes, of “dry gardens”, which testify on the economic power of tobacco trading in Greece, that faded out half a century ago. The artist paints names, numbers, calculations, and dates on tobacco leaves in order to highlight the everyday labor, both physical and mental, of local tobacco producers, relating to the cultivation, the processing, the exportation and the circulation of tobacco.

The exploitation and exportation of local natural resources through globalized trading routes is also pivotal in Kwaku Yaro's (GH) work, who resorts to upcycling and repurposing of materials including mats, plastic bags, and jutsacks, frequently used in the trading of cocoa and coffee beans. For the artist, upcycling is a means to contribute to his community Labadi in Accra with managing the volumes of plastic waste. His subjects, members of this community, are dressed in a westernized manner, influenced by the social media and the popular culture. Yaro calls into question the practices of fast fashion that lead to mass waste in West African coasts, and wonders what is the position of his country in the contemporary geopolitical landscape.

Means of production and protocols of trade also become the backdrop in the installation of Panos Famelis (GR). The “sculptive drawings” A Frankenstein made of charcoal and sulfur | Stitch me up and put me in a wire fence of words employs a wooden cargo surface, where codes and protocols of transport are still visible behind the writing. The multi-layered automated transcription of poems renders the writing illegible and drives language towards abstraction: it becomes image and rhythm. Famelis contrasts the personal with the social, and he asks how these two frequencies coexist in the formation of a subjective identity, in a moment of crisis. The sewing of the different parts not only reminds of Yaro's seam lines, but also echoes an internal effort to put together the pieces of a fragmented whole.

The art practice of Dessislava Terzieva's (BU/USA) that combines collages, sculptures, and installations, becomes a conceptual anchor for this show. Terzieva draws from the tension between the attractive and the repulsive, the established and the precarious. She celebrates the aging of materials, the decay of public infrastructure, as well as the improvisational practices within a balkan household that stem from scarcity. Leading personal narratives towards abstraction, she re-contextualizes objects, material cultures and traditions with humor. For the needs of the show, the artist was invited on a residency by Citronne Gallery to procude a site-specific installation inspired by the genius loci of the city. The juxtaposition between materials and objects sourced from athenian flea markets and second-hand scarfs and textiles from her hometown evince the continuity of a shared historical and cultural Balkan experience.

Meanwhile, Nicole Economides' (GR/USA) practice handles the concepts of memory and monumentality (μνήμη/μνημ-ειακότητα), as well as the relation between personal and national identity through symbols and images of nostalgia. The painting Apollo touches on the appropriation of Greek mythologies by western modern painters and serves as an act of reclaiming her ancestral history. The use of language and erasure reflect on the in-between spaces of her dual citizenship. On the bottom of the work, the polaroid of Apollo's protome from the MET points out the access to transnational histories in universal museums and the ambiguous motives of the agents in the preservation and “safeguarding” of cultural heritage.

Abstraction is also the vehicle of Léllé Demertzi's (GR) hybrid collages on mirrors, which are inspired by the Greek mythology and Ovid's Metamorphoses in particular. The melding of sculptural and physical bodies, through photographs taken in metropolitan museums around the world, alludes to the diaspora of artefacts and people. Through the reassembling of dismembered bodies, the series aspires to reiterate and embody eternal traits of the human nature, and to empower through the consciousness of our incompleteness. The use of mirror invites the onlooker to become part of the artwork, to identify with the narratives of mythical creatures, deities and mere mortals, and to allow the trauma transform into scars (and stars).

The ravages of time and decay inspire the Ivorian mutli-disciplinary artist Cédric Kouamé (CI) in his ongoing project Gifted Mold. He collects and recomposes vintage photographs in order to materialize the passing of time by superposing layers of history that coexist in post-independence Abidjan. His premise is that no matter the degree of distortion of the photographic material, the image still conveys a sensation by implying the personal story of its subject. A similar point of departure gives breath to the triptych All is less by Adonis Volanakis (GR) which is based on an archive of glass films from Brussels by unknown photographer and provenance. The juxtaposition of the female figure with the grating shade (which reminds of a prison cell) comments on the glorification of beauty, elegance and ornament. The side panels derive from the verses by Paul Celan “All things are less than they are. All are more” and refer to the paradox between self and self-representation.

Ebenezer Nana Bruce (GH) also focuses on female portraiture with a larger-than-life stirkingly bright-coloured painting. The female form emerges from the monochromatic flat background with thick strokes of paint and is captured as a numinous being. The title of Yellow Shawl points to the unmediated realness of the woman behind her appearance, and thus beyond religious beliefs, social and economic status or personal taste. Ebenezer is motivated by matters of representation and manifests the essence of his subjects in all their frequencies and shades.

Alekos Kyrarinis (GR) is inspired in terms of form by byzantine iconography, folklore and the chistian tradition. His themes descent from archetypical narrations and scriptures. His practice spanning from marble sculture to painting, reinterprets intertemporal symbols in the here and now. The artwork Battle of Worlds II belongs to a larger series exploring Eastern traditions. The illusion of bas-relief, as well as the blending of figures and decorative patterns remind of the votive function of inscriptions, oblations, and offerings. In Kyrarinis' work, the figuration and the adornment, the physical and the metaphysical, the concepts of Good and Evil, and Human merge.

Finally, Courage Hunke's (GH) portrait draws the attention to one of the obscurest facets of the deeply religious Ghanaian society. Hunke aims to create awareness for the international community around the oppressing practice of stigmatizing any deviation from the societal norm, any form of resistance, and any expression of mental health disorder, and ostracizing it from the community, particularly in Northern Ghana. The artist traveled to these camps, the “safe spaces” where (disproportionally female) victims of this superstision are logged and documented their personal stories. His paintings are a living testimony of all these marginalized people.

In(de)finite Selfhoods

About the artists

Chiderah Bosah Samuel (b.2000) is a self taught contemporary visual artist whose flair for art incepted at a very tender age of replicating -with pencil on paper- any visual figures he found in books and comics. This early and random interest in art eventually metamorphosed into a full-fledged career for this Port-Harcourt based Nigerian visual artist. Growing up in Africa, and with the common narrative incumbent on a typical black person, Bosah had always wanted to communicate these everyday experiences- the struggles and blessings- from his own standpoint. He uses art as an outlet not only to express himself but also to becocome a voice of the people. Currently exploring the medium of oil on canvas, his genre of art spans across figurative representation, simplified realism and portraiture, employing them as a means to mostly depict the resilient lives of Africans in the motherland. The singularity in Chiderah’s style of painting is the pronounced use of calm and pale hues to consummate his peculiar niche. Chiderah Bosah’s works have been exhibited in some major fairs across Africa, Europe and the United States.

Panos Charalampous (b.1956) is an artist living and working in Athens. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Athens under Nikos Kessanlis. He has participated in international exhibitions, including: 58th Biennale Arte, Venice, 2019 / Voice-o-graph & Flatus Vocis, documenta14, Athens and Kassel, 2017 / Genii Loci. Greek art from 1930 since today, Saint Petersburg, 2016 / White House Biennial, Varna, 2016 / Breakthrough, ARCO, Madrid, 2004 / Eidos, Besançon, 2004 / Copenhagen – European Capital of Culture, 1996 / Ogrody, Poznań, 1996 / Kunst-Europa, Visual European Landscape, Berlin, 1991 / Glasgow – European Capital of Culture, 1990 / Οut of limits, Poznan, 1990 / 3rd Biennale of Young Artists from Mediterranean Europe, Barcelona, 1987. Some of his notable solo shows include: Αquis submersus, Athens, 2014-15 / Tobacco Area, 1986 – 2011, Athens, 2011 / Voice-O-Graph, Athens, 2006-2007 / Phonopolis, Athens, 2003-2004 / Psychagogia II, Athens, 2001 / 1496–2000 / como humo se va, Athens, 1999-2000 / Psychagogia I (Recreation), Athens & Thessaloniki, 1997 / ΙΧΘΥΣ, Athens, 1995 / Concerning fishing, Athens, 1992 / Τobacco story, Βerlin,1991, Athens,1990,1988.

Léllé Demertzi (b.1993) graduated from the School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens in 2017. She also studied acting at the Athens Conservatory Drama School. She completed the MA Raumstrategien (Spatial Strategies) at Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee in July 2019. In September 2020, she completed a 12-Month Internship at the International Program of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. In 2020 she was awarded the ARTWORKS Fellowship for Visual Arts, funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. She has presented her work (performance, video, installation, photomontage) in solo and group exhibitions in Athens, Berlin, Zurich and Luzern, Salzburg, Accra, and New York. She is part of the artist duo “Reservoir Peacocks”, advocating for unapologetic female empowerment. Recurring matters in her artistic practice which begins from the research of the body, are identity, displacement and the need for belongingness, the ‘self’ and ‘the other’, the in-between spaces, language and silence, memory, presence and absence, as well as the scars and the stars in the digital era.

Nicole Economides (b. 1992) is an artist and independent curator based in Athens and New York. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons, The New School and a BFA from the Department of Fine Arts and Art Sciences at the University of Ioannina (2015). Economides is a recipient of the Gerondelis Foundation Scholarship, the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant for Painters and the IBM Grant for Artists in New Media. Her work has been shown in exhibitions in Greece such as Faces of a Hero, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) & Lincoln Center, New York City & Athens, Back to Athens 7, Cheapart (2020), and Inspire: Effective Spaces, the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (MMCA) (2015). She has participated in multiple group shows in New York such as Life-Giving Art: 9 Women Artists of the Diaspora, CUNY (2020) and Beneath Them Was Forever, Westbeth Gallery (2019). She was an artist in residence at the Agora Collective, Berlin in late 2016. She has participated as a guest juror for the 2022 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards presented by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. The artist also maintains a collaborative practice with Natalia Almonte, Paradoxluxe, a collective that critically engages the reductive perceptions of Greece and Puerto Rico. They co-curated the exhibition, We Are Here To Serve You (2020) at the Arnold & Sheila Aronson Galleries in Manhattan, that is traveling to Pública: in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2022). She also co-curated the group exhibition What Is Real? with Natalia Almonte and Tunie Betesh which was on view at The Real House in Brooklyn, NY in 2021.

Panos Famelis (b. 1979) is an artist and independent curator living and working in Athens, on various media ranging from painting, sculpture, drawing, installations, performances and theater. He is the founding member of Under Construction group. He has curated solo and group exhibitions, including: ‘’A letter to Esme’’ & ‘’No Land’’ Two Women Solo Show (Crux Gallery Athens), “Grounded”, Re-Culture Festival, “Coney Island” ( Ersi’s Gallery), “Art is hard”, Festival, Athens – Thessaloniki, “Black Jack 21 artists” (Rhodes Casino) and “Oasis” (Skironion Museum, Athens). He had solo and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad, his work is included in museums and private collections.

Courage K. Hunke (b.2000) is a contemporary experimental artist who resides in Ashaiman, Tema. His practices involve the use of acrylic on canvas as well as graphite. He is a member of the Artemartis collective based in Accra, Ghana. His works were recently exhibited at the “Birds of a Feather” exhibition, a collaboration between Phillips Auction House and Artemartis in London. His art is influenced by the stories of everyday Ghanaian women and children.

Cédric Kouamé (b.1992) is a multimedia artist, DJ and radio host (also known as African Diplomat) born in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. He holds a certificate in Communication and has studied performance and installation in Brussels. He was also trained at the project space Klaym in Abidjan, where he was mentored by photographers Joana Choumali and Flurina Rothenberger. Additionally, he’s done several residencies and workshops with sculptors Kafana Soro and Daniel Bamigbadé. Currently living and working between Brussels and Abidjan, he divides his practice between sculpture, photography and performative activations. His photographic work consists of street portraiture, architecture photography – mostly shot on 35mm films – and a collection of damaged positives and negatives, which he started in 2012. Most of those pictures are reflecting the clash between vernacular and modernism, the impact of this clash on the Ivorian social environment and the idea that a photo even damaged will always retract an emotion or a story to its owner.

Alekos Kyrarinis (b. 1976) was raised on the island of Tinos, the place of his origin. He worked with his father, Yiannis kyrarinis, who was a sculptor in marble, from the age of eleven until he entered the Athens School of Fine Arts in 1997. He studied there between 1997 and 2003, in the studios of Dimitris Mytaras and Yiannis Psychopedis. He has illustrated the books: “Alpha Group Calendar 2003”, “Verifying the night», “Encima del subsuelo / Above the subsoil”, “Drip from the tiles” and the Issues No 1, 2 and 3 of the magazine “New Responsibility”. He collaborates with the magazine “Shaft” and the cultural space “Baumstrasse”. He has published a short essay book about painting entitled “Questions to Nefeli” from Nefeli publications, Athens, 2011. He has had solo and group exhibitions in Athens, Tinos, Poros, Barcelona and Brussels. He lives and works in Athens.

Ebenezer Nana Bruce (b. 1988) is a figurative and portrait painter who lives and works in Accra, Ghana. After graduating from Ghanatta College of Art and Design in 2012, he has been practicing as a full-time artist, experimenting with tools and materials, and investigating, researching and experiencing the life behind the spirited crowds and individuals around him. By doing so, he unearths the latest trends in his country, identifies the topics he would like to address, and paints a picture of contemporary Ghanaian society. As an artist he feels he has a vast responsibility to culture and society: to uplift his country through his medium by creating awareness of situational circumstances, by addressing issues that impact us all and by provoking questions that lead discussions around solutions. Ultimately, Nana Bruce offers the observer an inside look of the society through his eyes, both as an artist and a citizen. On the canvas, he applies thick strokes of acrylic paint in an impressionist technique to visualize his narrative.

Dessislava Terzieva (b. 1989, Sofia) is a Bulgarian-American contemporary artist based between Detroit and Sofia. She earned a BA in Political Science from Oakland University and an MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2021 where she won the Museum Purchase Award and her work was accessioned into the permanent collection of Cranbrook Art Museum. Before attending Cranbrook, Terzieva made a name for herself as a prominent figure in the Detroit art scene, exhibiting in off-site locations, curating independent art spaces, and executing interactive and immersive installations in the public sphere. She has exhibited in the United States and internationally, including: ART-O-RAMA in Marseille, France; KO-OP in Sofia, Bulgaria; College for Creative Studies Center Gallery in Detroit, Michigan; Sculpture Center in Cleveland, Ohio; Aether Haha in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Huron Art Space in San Francisco, California; Mönchskirche in Salzwedel, Germany, Guck mal Günther, Kunst in Lenzburg, Switzerland, International Biennale of Santorini in Santorini, Greece; Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She has been awarded a residency at Hestia (Serbia), Bedstuy Art Residency (New York), Atelierhaus Hilmsen (Germany), and World of Co (Bulgaria). In 2021, she founded FIDANA Foundation, a non-profit organization facilitating contemporary art and interventions in public spaces using pre-existing infrastructure.

Adonis Volanakis (b. 1976) studied/ researched in Wimbledon School of Art, Central Saint Martins, Aalto University, University of Athens and New York University. His visual practice is a collaborative amalgam of fine and performing arts, human relationships and aesthetics, poetry and politics. Since 2003 his work focuses in herstories and since 2006 he facilitates blind date, a togethering collaborative platform. Adonis creates installations, exhibitions, community based public art projects and performances: USA (Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery, Dixon’s Place, Kimmel Galleries, etc.), in UK (Royal Opera House-Covent Garden, National Theatre, etc.), in Switzerland (Archeological Museum/ Basel, Kaskadenkondensator); in Georgia (History Museum of Tbilisi); in Greece (DOCUMENTA 14, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, State Museum of Contemporary Art, European Cultural Centre of Delphi, Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, National Theatre, Greek National Opera, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Benaki Museum, Cacoyannis Foundation, Athens Biennial) and in France, Canada, Finland, Czech Republic etc. Creating safe spaces for exchange and creativity is part of Adonis’ artistic practice and since 2005 he has being teaching and/or researching nonstop in universities in Greece, France, USA. Currently is an Assistant Professor at Cyprus University of Technology. Foundations that support his work Fulbright, Onassis, London Institute, Arts and Humanities Research Board/UK, B&E Goulandris, Propondis and Leventis.

Emmanuel Kwaku Yaro (b. 1995) is a Ghanaian contemporary artist who resides in Labadi, Accra. He has been a practicing artist for over six years and has a number of group exhibitions to his name, working with notable institutions including Alliance Française d’Accra. Yaro has also had a solo exhibition in the African Regent Hotel in Accra which also resulted in growth in the interest in his works, both locally and internationally. He has also been involved in a number of group exhibitions with Efie Gallery in Dubai and Phillips Auction House in London. He is a member of the Artemartis collective in Accra. Inspired by a range of artists like Georges Seurat, Marie-Guillemine Benoist and Sami Bentil, Yaro‘s research and development practices go beyond the limitation of his five senses, and his works are a testament to his passion for detail.

About the exhibition

The swift progress of technology as a trademark of our time has gone beyond facilitating communication to a de facto abolishment of borders and the annihilation of distances. Ideas, people and goods, tangible or intangible, travel freely and bring closer together all of humankind's aspects and traditions.

At the other end of this leveling -globalizing- development, individual places put up their defense. They act variously with resistance in an attempt to preserve traditions, identities and the systems of values which have marked and determined the major or latent histories of each region.

It is this spirit, this differentiated view of the world that CITRONNE Gallery wishes to showcase. The exhibition "Proximities and Distances" brings onto the artistic scene a multiple reading of the world. The continents are distinct but come together in the context of art—which, in any case, transcends by definition the perceptible world.

In the works on show visitors can observe these 'local' viewpoints. The works span within a broad spectrum, from a figurative to an abstractive approach to History and its interpretation. The selective images of the artists feature the memories of place, either as origins and distant references or as continuous experiences.

The curator of the show L. Demertzi notes “Uniting the local and the global, identity emerges as a palimpsest of both worlds, inhabiting their in-between space. It is proposed that identity is constantly in flux, shaping and being shaped by our positioning within the world. Aspiring to decipher the realms of our contemporary “glocal” collectivity, the exhibition assembles artworks in a variety of media spanning from painting to photography and installations, emphasizes on the resonances of experience, and celebrates the divergences and dissents of different cultures, geographical locations, singularities, and artistic practices.

The coexistence of these works does not necessarily create a synthesis. What it does generate is the strong and clear impression of a world in which the artistic gaze has the license and the power to synthesize the present without betraying the past; to unify space without erasing its special character.