Marietta Mavrokordatou
GIRL
29 Sep - 5 Nov 2023
Thkio Ppalies, Nicosia
Curated by Thalia Spyridou
The transition period between girlhood and adulthood labelled coming-of-age is also a period of coming to terms, with things being lost or things left forever undiscovered.
In her third solo exhibition, Marietta Mavrokordatou enters the psychological state of this moment in time, in an obsessive, repetitive process of searching for something lost that is never found.
Moments of clarity are presented as flashes in between, where the artist’s body moves in front of the lens and colour enters the picture. Hard floor against flesh, legs kneeling and hands grasping into emptiness - the search is not abstract, it gains a presence and a form. The artist chooses to move from the blurred to the defined, as adulthood perhaps happens when you start moving from the abstract to the form.
In the use of old machines and photographic processing that are becoming obsolete, in trying to source equipment and knowledge that is becoming harder and harder to find as technology develops, there is maybe an attraction towards the comfort of the past, or an enthusiasm for what’s about to be lost. The manual handling of the film, the feel of machines that are sturdy and straight-forward, present a seemingly controlled environment that also allows more room for error.
The rhythmic sound of the projectors is exaggerated through the volume of the speakers, moving throughout the room, introducing a stability that is unorganised. The mechanical starts to sound organic, seeming at once like a panicked heartbeat or the wild galloping of a horse. In a one-time performance that sets off the exhibition, this sound starts to become violent, distressing in its repetition. The sacrificial experience of coming-of-age is about letting go, and being one with the noise.
In its horizontality and repetition the work is seemingly sequential. However, as in the process of finding and losing, the story is always beginning but never ending.
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Marietta Mavrokordatou (b. 1996, Nicosia, Cyprus) is a visual artist based between London and Nicosia. Mavrokordatou is currently studying at The Slade School of Fine Art, London, UK, obtaining her MFA in Fine Art Media. She received her BA in Fine Art Photography from Camberwell College of Arts, London, UK in 2019. Her first solo exhibition, Rotten Sun, took place at TESTDRIVE, DriveDrive, Nicosia, Cyprus (2019).
Selected group exhibitions include Social Sculptures BEUYS100, Goethe Institut Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus (2021); Seeking Roots, curated by Ioulita Toumazi, NiMAC, Nicosia, Cyprus (2021); ...vida digna de ser vivida, curated by Peter Eramian, Phytorio Association, Nicosia, Cyprus (2019); Weltanschauung, Copeland Gallery, London, UK (2018).
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“We can’t return, we can only look”1
Dust, skin, hair. It was late August, when everyone was at a loss. Promises were made in June: we’d brush our hair, we’d drink the sun, we’d let our limbs grow long in the heat. And we did, for these were promises universally accepted, a rite of passage: just as girls bloom into women, carrying flowers, wisdom and swelling forward on a tray. They bloom, and their fidelities shift. This happens laboriously and noisily. It happened laboriously and noisily to us, and it was not always welcome. Panic as the motor fired up: oil, hydraulics and cogs with serrated teeth, clicking like fireworks or open fire. Did we manage to appreciate the light, its magic? It was over so quickly. In the blink of an eye! Everyone always says ‘Youth is wasted’, etc. etc. Well ok. The years are what we have now, their repetitive nature. Up, down, up, down.
In the commotion hearts and sunglasses and hair ties were misplaced. Lazy images, full of longing: those foam toe separators speckled with lint, the rubber bed of an eyelash curler, the pool that needed skimming. We searched for what got left behind by kneeling close to the floor: in prayer, or sex, or both. Gestures that take place in the dark, a hand grasping around. Mostly, everyone fucks this way: with a question. They called it the staging of an appearance as disappearance 2.
An explanation we accepted readily. ‘Yes,’ we said, ‘of course’. The most erotic portion of a body is where the garment gapes.’ 3 But inwardly this logic saddened us. It implied the infinitude of things unseen. All the things we could not keep.
Dust, skin, hair.
1 Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game
2 Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of The Text
3 Ibid.
Text by Hannah Regel
------------------------------------------------------------------
The exhibition was supported by the Deputy Ministry of Culture, Department of Cultural Services.
GIRL
29 Sep - 5 Nov 2023
Thkio Ppalies, Nicosia
Curated by Thalia Spyridou
The transition period between girlhood and adulthood labelled coming-of-age is also a period of coming to terms, with things being lost or things left forever undiscovered.
In her third solo exhibition, Marietta Mavrokordatou enters the psychological state of this moment in time, in an obsessive, repetitive process of searching for something lost that is never found.
Moments of clarity are presented as flashes in between, where the artist’s body moves in front of the lens and colour enters the picture. Hard floor against flesh, legs kneeling and hands grasping into emptiness - the search is not abstract, it gains a presence and a form. The artist chooses to move from the blurred to the defined, as adulthood perhaps happens when you start moving from the abstract to the form.
In the use of old machines and photographic processing that are becoming obsolete, in trying to source equipment and knowledge that is becoming harder and harder to find as technology develops, there is maybe an attraction towards the comfort of the past, or an enthusiasm for what’s about to be lost. The manual handling of the film, the feel of machines that are sturdy and straight-forward, present a seemingly controlled environment that also allows more room for error.
The rhythmic sound of the projectors is exaggerated through the volume of the speakers, moving throughout the room, introducing a stability that is unorganised. The mechanical starts to sound organic, seeming at once like a panicked heartbeat or the wild galloping of a horse. In a one-time performance that sets off the exhibition, this sound starts to become violent, distressing in its repetition. The sacrificial experience of coming-of-age is about letting go, and being one with the noise.
In its horizontality and repetition the work is seemingly sequential. However, as in the process of finding and losing, the story is always beginning but never ending.
-
Marietta Mavrokordatou (b. 1996, Nicosia, Cyprus) is a visual artist based between London and Nicosia. Mavrokordatou is currently studying at The Slade School of Fine Art, London, UK, obtaining her MFA in Fine Art Media. She received her BA in Fine Art Photography from Camberwell College of Arts, London, UK in 2019. Her first solo exhibition, Rotten Sun, took place at TESTDRIVE, DriveDrive, Nicosia, Cyprus (2019).
Selected group exhibitions include Social Sculptures BEUYS100, Goethe Institut Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus (2021); Seeking Roots, curated by Ioulita Toumazi, NiMAC, Nicosia, Cyprus (2021); ...vida digna de ser vivida, curated by Peter Eramian, Phytorio Association, Nicosia, Cyprus (2019); Weltanschauung, Copeland Gallery, London, UK (2018).
------------------------------------------------------------------
“We can’t return, we can only look”1
Dust, skin, hair. It was late August, when everyone was at a loss. Promises were made in June: we’d brush our hair, we’d drink the sun, we’d let our limbs grow long in the heat. And we did, for these were promises universally accepted, a rite of passage: just as girls bloom into women, carrying flowers, wisdom and swelling forward on a tray. They bloom, and their fidelities shift. This happens laboriously and noisily. It happened laboriously and noisily to us, and it was not always welcome. Panic as the motor fired up: oil, hydraulics and cogs with serrated teeth, clicking like fireworks or open fire. Did we manage to appreciate the light, its magic? It was over so quickly. In the blink of an eye! Everyone always says ‘Youth is wasted’, etc. etc. Well ok. The years are what we have now, their repetitive nature. Up, down, up, down.
In the commotion hearts and sunglasses and hair ties were misplaced. Lazy images, full of longing: those foam toe separators speckled with lint, the rubber bed of an eyelash curler, the pool that needed skimming. We searched for what got left behind by kneeling close to the floor: in prayer, or sex, or both. Gestures that take place in the dark, a hand grasping around. Mostly, everyone fucks this way: with a question. They called it the staging of an appearance as disappearance 2.
An explanation we accepted readily. ‘Yes,’ we said, ‘of course’. The most erotic portion of a body is where the garment gapes.’ 3 But inwardly this logic saddened us. It implied the infinitude of things unseen. All the things we could not keep.
Dust, skin, hair.
1 Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game
2 Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of The Text
3 Ibid.
Text by Hannah Regel
------------------------------------------------------------------
The exhibition was supported by the Deputy Ministry of Culture, Department of Cultural Services.
