Vasiliki Kappa was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She’s a cross-over artist currently living and working in Athens, Greece. She studied painting holding a master’s degree in Digital Arts (Athens School of Fine Arts). She also has a degree in Film direction, in Ancient Greek literature and linguistics, Acting and Opera Singing as well as a diploma in alternative psychology. As a visual artist she brings together a wide range of tools, ranging from painting to filmmaking, animation and video art. She has held 24 solo exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions around the world (Germany, USA). Apart from a visual artist Vasiliki is also a recognized writer, registered by literary critics as one of the most disruptive voices in contemporary literature. Her first book "The hyena’s diet" was officially nominated for a State Prize novel, something that rarely happens for an emerging writer. Her work as a multiple artist gave her the opportunity for a direct contact with the audience and constant experimentation with the idea of artistic identity and its applications in communication. In 2010, in cooperation with KOYINTA Cultural Organization, she supported an inspired artistic movement in order to start a dialogue both with well-known and emerging artists in a strictly artistic semantic context. Part of the movement was a TV cultural show titled Blow-Up, directed by Christos Karakasis. Vasiliki was the main host and presenter of the Blow Up TV show, which produced a total of 14 episodes that were screened both in Greece and Cyprus and they are also available on the web, with Vasiliki presenting artists, film directors, actors and writers. Finally, in the film festival field, she is one of the founders of the International Digital Film Festival in Athens and during its last edition in 2013, she was the festival producer and also a member of the Organizing Committee of the “International Panorama of Scientific and Ecological Films” which was implemented also in cooperation with Wildlife Vaasa Festival. INVISIBLE CITIES Her Invisible Cities, a title initially inspired by Italo Calvino, is a series of paintings that started coming to life in 1998. She has been working on the very same idea for fifteen years. This series was presented to the audience for the first time in 2002 in a Solo Exhibition in Athens and is her most popular series of works. In 2014 she has published her book “Take a trip to the Invisible Cities”, as the result of an amazing meeting between two projects that gave her the opportunity to express the same idea in different forms. The first project is her paintings “Invisible Cities”. The second project is a film called “Take a Trip” directed by Christos N. Karakasis, where she was asked to write the narration. The film was produced during the last two years. All filming took place in England, as London is the city presented and the subject goes around the philosophical chord of the deeper meaning of a city.
”Take a trip to the INVISIBLE CITIES” Exhibition Artist’s statement: Placed on the Landscape, villages and cities seem fragile. I always felt that if I close my eyes they would disappear as if they had never been there. Everywhere under the ground are hidden remnants of
ancient buildings. Ancient cities were more than buildings they were living organisms with settlements and ruins, fables and heroes, hidden mysteries. From antiquity until today there is the same vibration. Invisible cities belong to the world, every part of the world that keeps alive the memory of past cities. Invisible Cities have two faces: one obvious, one hidden. All these tiny houses in my paintings are trying hard to stay together; otherwise this chromatic wilderness around them should swallow them. I paint them as I remember them, I purify them from any realistic detail, trying to create a short chromatic summary of each place and reproduce the feeling you get when you see it for the first time. All paintings are based on real places that I have visited in my life. Τhe viewer is free to find his/her own cities behind those in my paintings which still remain invisible to me.” “Take a trip to the INVISIBLE CITIES” exhibition opens at Vaasa City Library on Wed. October 1st at 17.00 and it is supported by The Regional Council of Ostrobothnia in association with Wildlife Vaasa Festival.