The Balloon - Vassilis Christofi

Imagine one day you wake up and outside your window you see a big balloon. So big, that it spans to the end of your street and above the roofs. What would you do? You might run down and poke the bottom of the balloon or walk to the end of its curve. You might remain paralysed on the spot, thinking you are hallucinating. Perhaps you panic and call the police or knock on your neighbour’s door. Whatever you do, the presence of this unexpected guest triggers a series of questions that lead you on an explorative journey to seek answers.

In his second solo show “The Balloon”, titled after Donald Barthelme’s short story, Vassilis explores ways in which painting can respond to the complexity of personal experiences. Working primarily from personal memories, the images that inhabit Vassilis’s work often arise through an extensive exploration in the lively medium of drawing. Like an inverse process of excavation, the artist unravels the traces of his past by accumulating singular marks on paper or canvas. Inspired by the literary world of Franz Kafka, Vassilis’s paintings seek to conjure the presence of absence. While Kafka pursued to put into words that which occurs without them, Vassilis similarly searches for forms to capture memories that are transient, subjective, and multi-sensorial. How to capture the warmth of a kettle or the rustling of a cold breeze? Rather than encapsulating these into the stability of form, his paintings become evidence of the struggle to hold onto something that is fleeting.

excerpt from text by Nina Paszkowski

Opening by Nina Paszkowski on Wednesday 23/5/2018 at 20:00
Duration 23/5/2018 – 9/6/2018
Curation: Nina Paszkowski and Vassilis Christofi

Visiting hours:
Monday: 11:00 – 13:00
Tuesday to Friday: 11:00 – 13:00 and 16:30 – 20:00
Saturday: 10:30 – 13:00

For additional information please contact 22300150

Vassilis Christofi (b. 1990, Larnaca, Cy) lives and works in Cyprus. He completed a BA (Hons) Painting at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts, London and studied at Universidad Complutense in Madrid and at the Royal Drawing School in London. Selected group presentations: 2016: ‘Show Home’, Safehouse 1, London; 2015: ‘Two invitations: Petros Moris and Vassilis Christofi’, Point Centre for Contemporary Art, Nicosia; ‘Opposites’, Municipal Gallery, Larnaca; ‘Visions of Existence’, E.KA.TE space, Nicosia; ‘Engagement and Entrapment’, Zmart Gallery, Nicosia; ‘Girl Rising’, Apothiki 79, Larnaca.

Nina Paszkowski, (b. 1991, Basel, Switzerland) is a painter living and working in Cologne. With an ongoing interest in the overlap between the arts and social sciences, she completed an MA in Arts and Sociology at Maastricht University in 2016 after studying fine arts at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid and at Camberwell College of Arts in London.