Marina's blog

Re-Surface

2009-07-19T11:03:00.001-07:00

I'm having a solo exhibition in London at Tenderpixel gallery!

Re-Surface
Marina Kassianidou

Private View: Thursday, August 13, 6 - 9 PM
Exhibition: August 13 - September 5, 2009

PRESS RELEASE

Tenderpixel is pleased to present Re-Surface, the first solo London exhibition of Marina Kassianidou.

Re-Surface comprises of paintings and drawings on various surfaces that explore ways of thinking around relationships and hierarchies between mark/material/figure/surface. The artist paints and draws marks in response to each surface she uses, referencing patterns and echoing scratches, dirt and stains in the actual gallery space. The play between mark and surface within each work continues in the placement of the work, with the walls and floors of the gallery acting as surfaces on which to compose an installation.

The placement of the works re-activates elements already existing in the gallery space - galvanizing their historicity as palimpsests are revitalized and elements are reconfigured and reinterpreted. Investigating notions of texture and surface, Marina's installation includes 'pseudo-hidden art,' such as the placement of linoleum pieces on a similar floor - oscillating between being a piece of art or a piece of floor, between presence and absence. By partially blending into its surroundings, the work relates to the notion of a "fugitive" image/artwork and offers an alternative discourse. As Andrew Smaldone writes in an essay that accompanies the exhibition, "Kassianidou's work functions in a space where patterns and references to banal domestic environments begin to take on political/social overtones; where a healthy dialectical tension between opposites and a blurring of boundaries invite us to look again at things, forms, and spaces that at first glance we often think of as useless or easy to ignore."

Marina Kassianidou is an artist and writer based in Limassol and London. She graduated from Stanford University, CA, USA, in 2002 with a BA in Studio Art (with Distinction) and a BS in Computer Science (with Distinction). In 2005, she obtained a Master in Fine Art degree at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and is currently pursuing a PhD in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited internationally and her writings have appeared in journals in the USA and Europe.

Tenderpixel Gallery
10 Cecil Court, London WC2N 4HE
www.tenderpixel.com

Small is Beautiful

2008-11-26T13:08:00.000-08:00

I have a small painting in the group show "Small is Beautiful" at Flowers East gallery in London.

Here are the details:

Small is Beautiful XXVI
2 December 2008 - 3 January 2009
Private view: Saturday 29 November 2 - 4 pm
Flowers East: www.flowerseast.com

View from the studio

2008-11-12T02:15:00.000-08:00

The studio I worked in while living in the States didn’t have any windows. It was a big room with glass on the roof. When you looked up all you could see was the sky and some tree branches. My studio in London was on the third floor of a building on Charing Cross road. It had one window looking down onto a narrow yet busy street. My studio now is an old house in downtown Limassol. All of its windows look out onto a hedge that surrounds and almost hides the entire house. When I look out any of the windows all I see is green. I'm literally cut off from the neighborhood.

I actually requested that the hedge not be trimmed. I like hiding behind it while I’m working. I feel as if I’m living the myth of the lonely artist, isolated in the studio, frantically painting away. It’s not really like that of course. I mean, I like having my peace and quiet while I’m working, but can anything really happen in complete isolation? Doesn’t everything exist in a context? Don’t things – people, thoughts, objects, whatever - need to interconnect? One of my teachers used to say that “that’s what it’s all about” – making connections, being able to relate things, even in strange ways.

She never specified what “it” was…maybe art, maybe life…who knows. But I agree with her.

(Extract from Backstage, a limited edition text-based artist's multiple that accompanied my exhibition at Gloria Gallery in February 2008. I still have a few copies left. If anyone would like one, let me know. The booklets are in Greek and English, signed and dated.)

Buy handmade

2008-11-07T03:36:00.001-08:00

Hello

2008-11-07T02:58:00.001-08:00

Hello world. Check out my relatively new web site at www.marinaek.com.