Athene Galiciadis: Measuring the World

18 mar 202313 maj 2023

Measuring the world – The title of Athene Galiciadis‘ first exhibition at von Bartha Copenhagen is a reference to an intermediate space between the deliberate and the unintentional. It directly leads to the act of painting as a sensuous and bodily endeavor, rather than a theoretical and mathematical one. Galiciadis paints her works by hand and, concerning the volume of each piece, compares the act of painting with the embrace of a body.

The central works in the show are Galicadis‘ Empty Sculptures, acrylic painted ceramics that have been forming an important part of her Oeuvre since 2013. The sculptures are reminiscent of vases, but despite their form, they are not related to the botanic bearing vessels. This becomes evident in their materiality; unlike the process behind the conventional production of ceramics, Galiciadis does not glaze her sculptures, nor does she burn them a second time. Instead, after having the sculptures burnt once, she paints them with acrylic paint and lets them air-dry, like painting a canvas. The compositions on the Empty Sculptures are based on handdrawn grid structures – rhythms that repeat but slightly change over time. Like the painted patterns that unfold organically over the curved surface of the sculptures, they are geometric in their repetitious construction. So, the Empty Sculptures share similar characteristics in shape and geometrical patterning while maintaining their unique expression.

Both the title and the idea evoke different stories and interpretations: „It opens the imagination when you think of them as Empty Sculptures because you can fill them up“, the artist states.

By placing the sculptures in a specially designed shelving system on a grid structure in the center of the gallery space, Galiciadis emphasizes their seriality and thus adds an installative element to the presentation.

Kilde: von Bartha