ARGO Gallery June 2-19
APOTHEKE contemporary arts June 9-19
From June 9-19 at the ARTos Foundation the public had the opportunity to become familiarized with Maria Papacharalambous’ previous works, since 2010 is the 20-year anniversary of her first solo exhibition.
On Thursday, June 17th, there was a showing of selected films and video art of the artist.
Works exhibited at ARGO Gallery [from 2- 19 June 2010]
Works exhibited at ARTos Foundation as a 20 year retrospective [from 9 - 19 June 2010]
Achilleas Kentonis
trans-disciplinary artist, scientist, researcher, Nicosia 2010
"Here & tHere"
From the cave of Plato up until a cosmic sympathy for the Rennaissance, and as an extension towards quantum analysis of the present day, we witness a consistency of humans in their efforts to handle the mystery of existence. Each effort always has a constant as a basis on which it sets its viewpoint, based on ethics, theology, mythology or even time as an independent entity. The truths are as many as the planets surrounding us.
One of the values of Art is that it is more concerned with the questions rather
than the answers. Artistic creation presupposes ‘absolute freedom’ (detachment
from the ‘constants’ that predetermine the result). With the trilogy «here & there»,
Maria Papacharalambous bridges here and there in an utmost personal manner – I would even call it confessionary- not only through the use of a wealth of
experience which has been forced-offered to her in a complex and destructive mode, but mainly through her vast underlying inner strength which builds, destructs, auto-desctructs and rebuilds, returning her to the exact starting point.
She finds herself at that same point, but now having the wealth and luxury of
feeling that <i’ve been here before>. She works with new codes that do not
overturn the old ones, but with a pervasive / investigative mood and free from
the fear of the unknown and the risk of no return. Because in the end, we always
return somewhere.
From her previous collection entitled «re-tales», light as a feather and free as
the wind, which goes in depth into a catharsis from the process of painting and
producing colour [paint = pain + t ] she traces the factor of time (t) in relation
to pain (pain). She chooses the free fall into the depths of the subconscious and
there she encounters her relationship with the object as memory, as energy and as an element which reflects the private, which is being transformed into a universal.She creates hanging ‘banners’, with a narration whose semiology is on the one hand overturned by itself, but on the other it is integrated within the inner self of the viewer.
A consistency in the respect of her work is obvious, but mainly towards the spectator as a soul.
For Maria, the frame has been for many years the window overlooking the primitive origins. Known as a strong painter, she has used organic and inorganic materials, has created artwork ranging from huge monumental pieces to very small, but always transforming the humble and ephimeral material into a new poetic dynamic which shows its personality through time. It is my evaluation that her previous collection, and as an extension all her previous collections, has contributed in her centrifugation from her dynamic orbit. A liberation from her own self, her achievements, the pain, the fear.
The trilogy «here & there» is filled with interiority and spirituality, but this
time through an experiential approach. With the intelligent title ‘here & there’
and borrowing again the symbol «t» which symbolizes time, she juggles on the
"here" and „there“ wordplay: by subtracting the factor of time, they co-exist
simultaneously. She has managed, one more time, to essentially prove that which she has defined already (among others): the more personal, the more it is
universal. With a freed body and spirit, she manages to charge this creation,
not through the loneliness of her workshop, an element which is seen through older collections, but with an energy that flows from her own life itself.
She is clearly closer to the human as the «other» and at the same time closer to
herself as «Ι». The optimism, the childishness, the intentionally creative
naivity and the daring of the consciously released which is completed „elsewhere“ and certainly within the inner world of the viewer, give an ambiguity which may be targeting initiated souls and personalities. It is obvious that Papacharalambous conquers a lost landscape of herself and that makes the specific works so direct.
This is the exact reason which causes an almost immediate resonance with the
viewer, due to its meddling with the creative ubiquity that we carry within us
in relation to our inner self, perhaps even our higher self.
Her language is concise, immediate and penetrative. Selected «minor-discharges» leave behind them «multi-layered» narrations which lead to personal trips into the memory of the past and the future. It‘s as if the soul has no more space within the body and transfers experiences inducively. The various layers and levels of interpretation of her work constitute magic to the sences, where words loose their interpretive meaning and touch upon feelings that usually come about through music, scent and intuition. The symbols, the materials and the forms are immediately autonomized, taken beyond their semiological interpretation.
She chooses to present “here & there” as a trilogy which takes place in three
different locations, three different spaces, thus creating a triangle in dialogue.
The „coincidence“ as a mind game produces another narrative, by realizing that all three exhibition spaces start with the letter «Α»: Argo, Apotheke, ARTos.
The ‘aaa’ is for others the sound of creation, the sound of joy, of unforced
perfection. It’s a type of algorithm that creates the global question, whether
the “random” truly exists. She uses various disciplines of expression, three
dimensional wall works, kaleidoscopes, video art, sculpture and video
installations. The wall works are autonomous, humble and infiltrating exercises of intuition. An infiltration into the depths of the subconscious, collective memory, the deeper truth of the world. Irony and homor are ways towards self-awareness and balance.
Enjoyment of the game/ trip with the acceptance of conventions but also their
overturn. By shutting out that which is obvious, references to symbols but also
the cosmic tree, the pylon which supports the mysteries of the sky. This symbolic
tree, originally planned in 2006 to become a sculpture, re-emerges now, as a dire
need.
An interactive game with kaleidoscopes acts as multiplier of images which create virtual carpets which alternately reflect endless rows (symbolizing the endless truths), reminding us of the connection between opposites.
Video art which was created out of the hatching of an egg and borrowed excerpts
from Kazantzakis ‘Askitiki’, ‘Saviors of God- spiritual exercises’, whereby the
artist is involved in an all-encompassing process of doubting, and simultaneously
in an opening of a window, a suspicion, a belief. A balancing is created between
the material and the immaterial –ephimeral and eternal- important and unimportant.
A multiple video installation includes the house (womb), the table (body), the
frames (will), the kaleidoscopes (truths) and the banners (statements). With
biographical / experiential evidences, she deals with the marginal relation
between life and the other dimensions, the untold secrets of our body and the
inner landscape.
In the context of the formulation of contemporary Art History, where the
(usually sociological) research is the work itself, undoubtedly these kinds of
in-depth examinations provide it with essential nutrition, due to their freeing
of the element of time in a ‘natural’ way. I stress this, being fully conscious
of its meaning, having knowledge of the philosophical approach with which
Papacharalambous remains consistent in her creative manifestations in all the
artforms she has dealt with through her artistic course (painting, sculpture,
installations, video art, film, architecture, icon painting, photography,
design, music, engraving).
It would not be an exaggeration to characterise the multifarious «here & there»
as a sample of the law of attraction where the element of recreation is intense.
It communicates directly with what we tag as hidden mass intelligence and that is
certainly accomplished through exceeding honesty and authenticity which the artist is presenting.
Demetris Taliotis
trans-disciplinary curator, cultural entrepreneur
“Maria Papacharalambous”
Maria Papacharalampous' new series of works, under the title 'Here and There', is once again treading between the empirical and the spiritual.
Beyond the semiotic interpretation of space and time, Papacharalmbous new works - a trilogy of sorts - exposes first of all the fragility of presence. Exploiting a 'T', the physics' symbol for time, she discloses a gathering of distances across the now defaced chronological continuum, understood not horologicaly but through a congregation of events.
No longer the iconography of loneliness, yet laconic, direst and accute, her 'micro-discharges' of works depitct an infiltration into the subconcious the most pesonal and the most collective of memory deposits. Across a variety of media, across spaces - 'points' - these humble and acute exercises of intuition rather than narration, extend and stand tall, documents of Papacharalambous 20-year long and kaleidoscopic career, as a painter-topographer of being.
Elements from 'Here and There' will be exhibited at Argo Gallery, APOTHEKE and ARTos Foundation in Cyprus before moving to the Macedonian Museum of Modern Art in Thessalonica, Greece, at 12th Cairo Biennale, Egypt and at Tabacalera Madrid, Spain. [m]ARTos in Madrid, Spain, accompanied by a 128-page catalogue celebrating Maria Papacharalambou's 20-year career.
Dr. Andri Michael, Art historian, Associate Professor Faculty of Art {UPJV} Amiens, France, 201