The hollow spaces of the heart; rooms within buildings; worlds within worlds. Chambers are spaces of sanctuary, resonance, and containment; vessels inside vessels designed for the exchange of fluids and sounds. Across her practice, Konstantina Krikzoni constructs spatialised environments that both resemble and contain female bodies; through a visceral palette of pinks of reds, Krikzoni constructs womb-like chambers in which feminine behaviours seep and blossom without limit or restraint. Women kneel, crouch, and recline, captured in intimate moments of metamorphosis or excretion, claiming a place beyond shame and confounding viewers’ social expectations.
Krikzoni’s first solo exhibition at Newchild is intimately concerned with abjection, drawing on Julia Kristeva’s theories around the abjection of the mother. Kristeva argues that society regulates itself by destroying the mother as an object of desire by associating her with the abject, ruling that female bodily fluids, hormones, and hair must be removed, purified, or kept hidden, dealt with behind closed doors. In defiance of these taboos, Krikzoni’s paintings depict the symbolic figures of social theory, but these female archetypes emerge in ambiguous and subversive forms, challenging viewers’ expectations around women’s behaviours.
Konstantina Krikzoni (b. 1987, Greece) holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (Arts and Humanities), London. Previously she studied painting at the School ofVisual and Fine arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2015), and Mathematics at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the same university (2010). Her work has been exhibited across Europe and the UK. Recent exhibitions include ARTBO, Newchild (2022); Emotions are Fact, Nosbaum Reding Luxemburg (2022); Hypnagogia, 20 Rue de la Poudrière, Brussels (2022) and The Ceiling With A Tranquil Eye, Cork Street Galleries and Royal College of Art, London (2021). The artist is a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant (2020), and the NEON Foundation for Culture and Development scholarship (2021/22), and she has been shortlisted for the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) scholarship (2021) and the Chadwell Award, London (2022). She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021). She lives and works in London.
Artists: Konstantina Krikzoni
