“Let the Lion talk” Christina Papaioannou

On Friday, May 6, 2022, at 20:00 the Sianti Gallery is proud to present the personal exhibition of Chistina Papaioannou under the title “Let the Lion talk”. Do lions talk? Of course, they do. The way all works of art talk. Especially those of Christina Papaioannou, full of chaotic details which mesmerize even the most reluctant, towards painting, viewer.

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Thanassis Moutsopoulos, Art historian and curator of the exhibition, underlines the intangible, visual potential of Christina Papaioannou’s representational painting style: “The first personal exhibition of Christina Papaioannou presents us with a rare proposition: a kind of painting (or should I dare say ‘post painting’?) in which the integration of Digital and Painting aspects creates a newly born form. Her artistic process works like a blender, grinding together scattered references to Art History (with a prominent love for Durer’s engravings), countless painting styles (the coexistence of which, has long been an insurmountable artistic taboo), various interactive procedures (such as children’s paintings made by the artist’s pupils) and, of course, Pixels, videogames and the digital world. If all those obviously contradicting
elements where to coexist in a lifeless way, they could easily become a postmodern extravaganza (nothing wrong with that). Yet, this is not the case here. Surging through the interference produced by the transmission of segmented images, the final result seems to have a special balance of its own, as if it preexisted as a form in its own right.”

Christina Papaioannou takes an original sketch made with pencil, augmenting it until it reaches the most dynamic form of the chromatic palette. The composition’s spontaneous deconstruction is quite obvious. As Thanassis Moutsopoylos stresses: “Her composing methods are closely related to the 20th century collage legacy. Yet, in Christina Papaioannnou’s cocktail, the different elements (used in considerable abundance) are being dissolved. In the end, they remain fragments or scarps (detectable only by the acutest eye) of a world shattered through a process that we, as outsiders, cannot decode. I surely can’t, even though I am the one writing these words looking at the very works of the exhibition. I think the source of the enigmatic nature of Christina Papaioannou’s painting is an element of randomness – as I’m tempted to call it, although I very well know that it is not so. In reality, there’s nothing random about it since the artist is in full control of her creative means, from the start to the very end. But there is one element in this planetary collision of forms, shapes and references that does not allow, in my humble opinion, the implementation of any established aesthetic rules. Undoubtedly, the 20 th century has already challenged all of them. Yet, in my eyes, Christina Papaioannou’s painting has an eerie relation to the art of an alien civilization or, better yet, that of an Artificial Intelligence.”

As a matter of fact, Christina paints with thrilling precision and mastery, winking an eye to all mechanical procedures. At the same time, she proves that classic opinions concerning the evolution of modern art are obsolete. This is the core of the artist’s work. An ironic comment on the notions of what is real and what is manufactured, of painting and the digital element.

On the contrary, the ambiguity of unfocused printing, television interference or pixels across a witness’ face can intensify the mystery as much as the connection of the unseen dots, thus promoting the viewer’s role. It reminds us of a thriller movie, where the unseen is often more frightening than what we see. I’m referring to the traits which marked, above all other things, the evolution of modernism and abstraction. What is important here, is not what you see, but what you think you are seeing. The final goal is the challenge of narration or a challenging narration.

I feel that the first personal exhibition of Christina Papaioannou offers a significant new path to the adventures of painting, as it enters the digital era. At the beginning of this piece, I wondered if it’s a kind of post-Painting. I am still wondering…”

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