«Palimpsest of Memory»
Solo exhibition
24.05 – 09.06/2018
Skoufa Gallery is pleased to present “Palimpsest of Memory,” a solo show by Lina Pigadioti-Tzima that opens on the 24th of May till the 9th of June. The exhibition is curated by Dr Sozita Goudouna and consists of a series of mixed media artworks.
Lina Pigadioti employs disposable objects and discarded elements as materials through which she constructs her current solo exhibition. The plasticity of assemblage, collage and printing is prevalent in these art pieces that illustrate the artist’s idiosyncratic treatment of any art medium (painting, sculpture, etc.) but also as metaphors that allude to the disparity between personal and public reality, natural and industrial, Greek politics and its consequences, but also to the precarious and ephemeral conditions of contemporary life.
Pigadioti opens the pictorial (found objects) and sculptural to the actual gallery space in the same way that minimalists, conceptual and abstract-expressionist artists have experimented with these transpositions. Her spatial collages challenge the artwork’s status as an object and its relationship to the viewer, while they stress the social ramifications of the work of art, and the sensitivity that defines the artist’s perception of social reality.
The artist attempts to bring new life to the collage, by adding exquisitely meticulous elements, so as to re-invent her medium during this new historical and collective moment that anticipates and aspires a different future. These astonishing, arresting but also powerfully enigmatic visual objects that capture a series of annual memories are compiled in the attempt to invent a new personal narrative that will help the viewer, but also the artist to resolve the past and imagine this different future.
Like the palimpsest, these art pieces have a double function, they preserve the distinctness of all the elements, while exposing the contamination of one by the other, hence, the process of layering co-exists with the process of erasure and with the re-emergence of all elements in a versatile and heterogeneous composition. And it is only the passing of time that can bring to light the meaning of the older layers, as well as the threshold between life and art.
Lina Pigadioti is inviting the guests to experience “reading” this whole collection through the same circumstances that it was created. That is under Stavros Sofianopoulos’s musical compositions and Konstantinos Kavafi’s lyrics.
Biography
Lina Pigadioti-Tzima studied at Parsons School of Art & Design in Paris (BFA, 1991) and Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design in London (1990). In 2013 she completed a Contemporary Art course at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York. And in 2014 she participated in a Printmaking Master Class at Columbia University (School of Visual Arts), New York.
Having worked for 18 years in the publishing business, since 2008 she has devoted herself to art. She travels extensively for inspiration, taking pictures, writing and collecting objects and memories. She then creates a series of works of art which combine painting, etching, collages and photography in a very personal way.
Her work seeks to visualize the impact of time. It depicts images of fthora (wear and tear, decay) and, through varied ways, means and techniques, recounts the feeling of spoilage that time leaves on matter. Lettering and random incidences complete the “syllabus” of her communication bible.
Lina lives and works in Athens, Greece.
Works of hers are part of museum collections including (MMCA) Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece and many private collections in EU & USA.
