ATHENS OPEN ART 1 1 T H
F E B R U A R Y
GALLERY
SNEHTA
NODNOL EXHIBITIONS
INDEX 1. JANNE PELTOKANGAS 2. THANOS BARLOS 3. ALDA KOTE 4. ALEXANDRE LACTIVE (ROTOSART) 5. KARIM SAHYOUN 6. LAUREN BICKERDIKE 7. GOUZELLE ISHMATOVA 8. EUGENIA PAPAIOANNOU 9. MÁRIO AFONSO 10. DOMITILLA CAMPONESCHI 11. NOLA ABBOUD 12. FOTINI GEORGAKOPOULOU 13. PRISCILLA CHRISTODOULOU 14. TINA PASPALA
JANNE PELTOKANGAS IG: @jannepeltokangas Janne Peltokangas combines his knowledge as a traditional blacksmith with his background as a Sámi growing up in Lapland. In his research, he investigates the spiritual belief system of the Sámi in relation to objects in nature. In this Peltokangas raises interesting questions, if a handmade object can contain a feel of spirit and what an object enables to express this. Peltokangas intuitively explores forms of complexity through traditional blacksmith techniques. For ten years, Peltokangas has worked as an artist around Europe and North-America. He has exhibited together with Eva Hild, Julius Voegtli and Rick Smith. His work has been shown in the USA, China and Europe. Peltokangas has received several prizes and grants for his artwork.
THANOS BARLOS IG: @prism.noir Thanos Barlos was born and raised in Patras, Greece and currently studying there Business Management Administration. He started taking photos as a hobby 7 months ago, until he got his first camera when it felt more like destiny to him. This is the first exhibition, that he can share his point of view,especially on street photography,as influenced by Cartier Bresson and other contemporary artists like Alan Schaller. Thanos is mainly taking black & white pictures as it provides him the opportunity to dive into the variety of tones and shadows keeping the image complex through simplicity.
ALDA KOTE IG:@ultraaviolent Alda Kote is a young photographer who experiments with different styles of photography and editing. She is heavily influenced by nature, absurdism, and the human condition. Her work is either vibrant with sometimes unrealistic colours, reminiscent of a bucolic, almost ideal scenery, or bleak and dreary, symblosising the fragmentation of one’s self and the melancholia and loneliness of human existence. “ODE TO SUMMER” is a reflection of the former. It is a depiction of a euphoric carefree summer while simultaneously being a distant passive observer.
ALEXANDRE LACTIVE (ROTOSART) IG:@rotosart Alexandre Lactive also known as "Rotosart" is a 25 years old artist who specialise in collages, digital painting, rotoscope animations and traditional painting. He comes from a small island in the Indian Ocean known as Mauritius and he has lived in Paris for the past 3 years where he has recently obtained a Master in Digital Creation and Art Direction. He has previously exposed his artworks about slavery in 2016 and has worked to develop his skills and experiment different style to express his two passions: cinema and the black culture. As you can see through his work in this exhibition, "Rotosart" artwork focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, freedom versus captivity or dream versus nightmare and how he made these “worlds” collide through collage.
KARIM SAHYOUN IG: @karimsahyoun Karim Sahyoun (b.1988) is a Lebanese photographer. He spent most of his life in Egypt, then in England, and currently in Cyprus. Coming from a multicultural background, he has found himself as a photographer through self-teaching as a means to escape from the redundant and repetitive work life. Karim is influenced by Sebastião Salgado, David Yarrow, Tyler Shields, and Platon. He mostly shoots in black and white as he believes it engages the viewer on a deeper level. When he takes a photo, he doesn't just capture a scene, he tries to capture a feeling. It's this thought process that makes his work powerful. Whether you feel the same as he does or not, it’s open to interpretation.
LAUREN BICKERDIKE IG: @lauren_bickerdike
Lauren Bickerdike is an Irish multimedia artist. She graduated Limerick School of Art and Design where she specialised in Sculpture and Combined Media, receiving a BA Degree in Fine Art. Her practise explores societies and environments, through the context of location, using audio and photography as her primary medium. Through urban and rural settings, her work exposes the influence communities and human activity have on our environment.
Lauren has participated in recent shows including Sacred and Profane Geometries in Kathmandu, Nepal (2021), Works on Paper in Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin (2021), Distanced Domestic in MKII, London (2021), Lasta Arts Festival for the Dunamaise Theatre, Ireland (2021) and Art As Message in the CICA Museum, South Korea (2020).
GOUZELLE ISHMATOVA IG: @gouzelle Gouzelle Ishmatova is a Russian-born visual artist based in Paris, France. After moving to Western Europe, Ishmatova began using her camera as a tool to understand the places she left behind; in the years since, her visual storytelling expanded into areas of narrative series. Blending documentary work with staged imagery, Ishmatova also takes inspiration from her family’s own visual archive, as well as research. Her work lives in the space between universal and lived experience, and is motivated by understanding and reflecting female eye and voice in her practice. The present series “Three months of 2020” has been conceived during the first confinement in 2020. Gouzelle took analogue photographs of empty Paris during 1 hour long walks allowed by the government per day. Pre pandemic, Paris is visited by 30 million tourists per year and in 2020 it looked so lifeless, shut down and Gouzelle felt the urge to “travel” into her inner world to bring emotions, flavours and state of mind during this period when the world was put on hold
EUGENIA PAPAIOANNOU IG: @_eug__ Eugenia Papaioannou is a young student whose love for art led to a passion for creation.From a young age she started taking art classes and was constantly influenced by her family in aspects of creative education.Therefore the result of the influence from people around her led to the exhibits you are witnessing.The artist through her pictures would like to point out that there’s no place where you can’t find art.Art is even in the simplest things in life and takes all kinds of forms.All you have to do is just let it express itself and enjoy it’s magic.
MÁRIO AFONSO IG: @mabafonso Mário Afonso (1983), born in Cascais and currently residing in Canelas, Estarreja. He has a Degree in Fine Arts by the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, and is a master’s degree in Contemporary Artistic Creation at the University of Aveiro. At the moment he manages the Estação Project, a space for cultural dissemination which is being operated with the intent to promote the work of national and international artists from various artistic areas, such as photography, painting, music, video art, etc. Additionally workshops for children and adults are held there, encouraging artistic practices and critical thinking
DOMITILLA CAMPONESCHI IG: @domitilla.camponeschi Domitilla Camponeschi is an Italian designer, based in Rome. In 2020 she achieved a BA in Jewelry Design at IED Rome. She works in collaboration with brands in the field of 3D modeling and digital illustration, always keeping in touch with the matter. A lifelong enthusiast of the creative process, she pursues and cures the evolution of the idea beyond the matter. Lately, genderless faces personify her creations, uniting the subject and the object, equivalent and as powerful. Her creations aim to bring a sense of unfinished mystery. Every object, finished in itself, becomes a story open to interpretation.
NOLA ABBOUD IG: @the_art_sense Nola Abboud is a Lebanese-American self-taught collage artist, who graduated with a BA in Public Administration from the American University of Beirut, and a Masters in Southeast European Studies from the University of Athens. In 2015, she started doing handmade collage in Beirut, Lebanon, in reaction to the political and social circumstances in the Middle East. Her art deals with war, injustice, stigma, violence, trauma, and inequality that targeted the community she mostly associates with. She chose to see an opportunity to create art that echoed her feelings, experiences, and thoughts about the impact and effects of imperialism, and colonialism in the Middle East that left the region in an unending state of war over ethnic and religious differences.
FOTINI GEORGAKOPOULOU IG: @fotini_geor Bright and happy colors, Wes Anderson's palette and sunlight are Fotini's love. Portraits with flowers, the sunset and little colored details in urban places is what she is looking for. For her photography is not always about the truth. It’s also about little happy places that exist at least for a moment through her lens. The necessity to capture them so as to underline their existence. There are colors, light and beautiful people everyday and everywhere around us. You just have to watch carefully and search for the hidden beauty. Even at the most unexpected places. Especially there!
PRISCILLA CHRISTODOULOU IG: @priscilla christodoulou Priscilla Christodoulou is a visual artist based in Athens. She studied public administration at 2013 but after she graduated changed her path and studied photography at 2018. This is the second show that participate. She respect natural light and beauty ,she goes for hunting and looking for treasures among the people like abandonment buildings. She wants to capture how the time passed and make change around us.
TINA PASPALA IG: @callme_tuna Tina Paspala is a greek photographer currently living in Athens. Even in the most simple moments, when people are walking ,talking, having a bath or simply existing, when people are comfortable and just themselves they can look like an art piece. That is what the artist ist trying to portray in her pictures using her film camera. Her work has been featured in Photo vogue italia, numerous online magazines in greece and has also been exhibited in galleries in London and Athens.
ATHENS OPEN ART 11TH FEBRUARY