Ioulia Ventikou “Circles” 24 January – 9 March 2013 On Saturday March 9th is the last day of Ioulia’s Ventikou exhibition and we are expecting you at Medusa from 11:00 to 15:00 for a glass of wine and a memoryaaa
Cataloque text
KΑΤΕΡΙΝΑ EVANGELAKOU, Film Director
Circle: A round plane figure whose boundary (the circumference) consists of points equidistant from a fixed center. C = 2 π ρ Imagination as an integral part of geometry
My first encounter with Ioulia Ventikou’s paintings was back in 1996. That’s when I first saw her passages filled with golden light. Those uninhabited spaces whose dilapidation insinuated an intense human absence. By looking at them, and in the weird way that only painting can sustain, I had the feeling that someone had just departed – could be forever, could be for a few minutes only – and that their very departure imbued every lifeless thing with life.
Since then it’s been a while, and it seems that someone’s back within these dark rooms. Invisible, he is looking from the top at old-fashioned floor tiles, majestic in their geometric modesty, and at beloved pets, careless in their physicality. This is the first cycle: life behind the walls. The moonlight invades these wall-fitted lives and transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, since: When there’s a moon, the shadows in the house grow larger, invisible hands draw the curtains.1
The other cycle is entitled “30 Μoons”: life outside the walls. The daily repetition of shifting our gaze towards the skies involves another kind of “geometrical” exercise. How to capture time: an intelligent yet tyrannical conception since, in order to achieve it, the artist couldn’t miss a single phase of the August moon.
Each and every one of Ventikou’s most recent works uses humour, esotericism, patience, and rhythm in order to insinuate a non-verbal story: it’s an annihilation of reason and language. Here, spirituality, fantasy, and dreams do not clash with realism, but work as a parallel reality to the cruelty of things.
KΑΤΕΡΙΝΑ EVANGELAKOU, Film Director
Circle: A round plane figure whose boundary (the circumference) consists of points equidistant from a fixed center. C = 2 π ρ Imagination as an integral part of geometry
My first encounter with Ioulia Ventikou’s paintings was back in 1996. That’s when I first saw her passages filled with golden light. Those uninhabited spaces whose dilapidation insinuated an intense human absence. By looking at them, and in the weird way that only painting can sustain, I had the feeling that someone had just departed – could be forever, could be for a few minutes only – and that their very departure imbued every lifeless thing with life.
Since then it’s been a while, and it seems that someone’s back within these dark rooms. Invisible, he is looking from the top at old-fashioned floor tiles, majestic in their geometric modesty, and at beloved pets, careless in their physicality. This is the first cycle: life behind the walls. The moonlight invades these wall-fitted lives and transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, since: When there’s a moon, the shadows in the house grow larger, invisible hands draw the curtains.1
The other cycle is entitled “30 Μoons”: life outside the walls. The daily repetition of shifting our gaze towards the skies involves another kind of “geometrical” exercise. How to capture time: an intelligent yet tyrannical conception since, in order to achieve it, the artist couldn’t miss a single phase of the August moon.
Each and every one of Ventikou’s most recent works uses humour, esotericism, patience, and rhythm in order to insinuate a non-verbal story: it’s an annihilation of reason and language. Here, spirituality, fantasy, and dreams do not clash with realism, but work as a parallel reality to the cruelty of things.
