ORIENTATION: MATER LAND

Orientation: Mater Land

Evangelia Spiliopoulou

Duration: 15 February – 23 March 2024

Opening: 15 February 19:00-22:00

The works at the exhibition allude to an existing body in its disappearance. Thumbprints, marks, spots, signs, cyphers and grids, spot areas and space. Natural and artificial materials mark surfaces and summon a narrative of the body at work, relevant spaces and equipment played on repeat. They refer to a state of being invisible or non-existent; to the absence yet appearance through vague circumstances; outline the physical presence and allure its gradual waning; they are a reference to the physical world, the one that can be experienced subjectively through the senses yet also that which escapes our perception.

For her first solo exhibition in Greece, Evangelia Spiliopoulou (b.1981) shows a series of works, which examine the concept of work as physical and intellectual labour and the role of objective (biological, physical) as well as collective (social and cultural) biases in the reception of the artwork. Repetition, duplication, reappearance, reoccurrence, frequency of physical and artificial nature document aspects of a living body at work; and the work as a living body gaining autonomy as a critical institution within culture.

Evangelia Spiliopoulou’s practice expands from drawing and painting, to sound and light installations and environments which encompass mixed media. These environments often work as visual puns questioning the reliance on our biological (mainly visual and auditory) trigger responses, which form the first impression. Yet the works unravel separate stories after they are first experienced.

The works presented at the exhibition, focus on the institution of work and its relation to and impact on the human body, culture and nature. They consist of series of detailed drawings as well as larger scale prints which examine the physical and technical narratives produced or created in various working stations, the use of computer, internet resources, technical paraphernalia and the influence of their signs and symbols to the human responses and perception.

The exhibition focuses on three phases of Evangelia Spiliopoulou’s practice, their development and relation to the conceptual history of art, the black and white drawing practice, the references to minimalism, the use of colour, the energetic fields of abstract expressionism, the colourism and the cerebral image ‘burn’ of impressionism. Her work has been exhibited in Athens, Museum of Contemporary Art; London, Drawing Room; Milan, PeepHole; Prague, DOX; Eindhoven, Van Abbemuseum Library; Rome, Ex-Bibli; Vienna, Kunstraum Am Schauplatz; Manchester, Castlefield Gallery, Bury Museum, Rochdale Museum-Touchstones; Antwerp, Lokaal 01. Her drawing practice has been part of the 2021 Drawing Biennial, (Drawing Room, London, UK), has been nominated for the Drawing Room Bursary (2015, 2011) and shortlisted at the New Contemporaries (2010).