MOULTING SEASON

Moulting: the biological process where an animal sheds an outer covering, such as feathers, fur, skin, or an exoskeleton, to make way for new growth.

Crux Galerie is pleased to announce Maria Louizou’s solo exhibition titled Moulting Season. The exhibition presents a series of new sculptures that explore the theme of dwelling, from skin to home, as a means of protection, as well as temporary places of release and regeneration. Included in the exhibition are the wax sculptures Dwellings, which were commissioned for the exhibition “In a Bright Green Field” of the DESTE Foundation and the New Museum in partnership with the Benaki Museum, curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari.

Sculptures made of wax, clay, steel, and plaster temporarily welcome bodies, highlighting the space left behind when their period of transformation is complete. The exhibition Moulting Season visualises precisely this process of transformation and its relic. At the same time, the ceramic works formed based on the human scale, are activated through the human presence and voices, being utilised as musical instruments. The program of live activations around and within the works performed by the artist will be announced shortly.

Maria Louizou holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in sculpture from the Athens School of Fine Arts and in the National School of Decorative Arts (ENSAD) in Paris. She studied theory of music (classical and electronic) in the Athens Conservatoire. In 2020 she was awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2020). Her research The Body in Contemporary Sculpture, Greek Tradition, and Polyphonic Composition won a grant by the Greek Ministry of Culture in 2020.

Portrait by Alex Kat

Her work has been shown in New York at Robert Wilson’s 2019 annual benefit Tabula Rasa as well as in Beijing, where she was awarded the prize China Taiyuan International Youth Metal Sculpture 2018. In 2022 she was artist-in-residence at The Watermill Center, the Atelier des Arques and the Delfina Foundation. In 2023 she participated in the exhibition Plasmata of the Stegi Onassis Foundation and in the European Capital of Culture in Timisoara.

Her work was displayed at the Theorimata 2018 exhibition in the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens and at the Benaki Museum as part of the DESTE Foundation and New Museum’s exhibition “In a Bright Green Field”, among others. She has had two solo shows, in Rome and Athens. Her work is part of international private collections. She lives and works in Athens.