Maria Toumazou
Maria Toumazou’s work is predominantly sculptural, though exploring other disciplines and perspectives as an artistic practice is focal. She is interested in the moment where found forms open up to alternative usage frameworks, shaping objects, materials, and situations through creative processes that are informed by site and biography. Literary forms – such as realism and its attention to the everyday – serve as a methodology for constructing narratives across and within works. Histories and cultures are also revealed in their material facture, unraveling tensions in chronology and circular references that frequently pull from various design eras. Her process-led practice binds together delicate narratives with industry, mechanics, and adhoc inventions employing subjective gestures to manifest opposition to dominant economical structures. Elsewhere, shifting the role of artist as creator, designer, or documenter, Toumazou has created collective projects which stand as independent modes of production: Neoterismoi Toumazou (a project space and art collective with a programme that brought together poetry, performance, music, fashion and object-art) Maria Editions (an independent publishing imprint based between Nicosia and New York) and Metafora (a Cypriot furniture retailer with a focus on postmodern design).
Download CV Here
Past Presentations
2024 – Phenomenon 5, Anafi, GR (group)
2024 – 2, Hot Wheels Athens London hosting Maxwell Graham for Condo London, London, UK (duo)
2023 – Das Lied der Strasse, (“The song of the street”), Biennale für Freiburg, curated by Paula Kommoss, DE
2022 – RHYTHM, CITIZEN, curated by Tom Engels, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, AT (solo)
2021 – Coil, Hot Wheels Athens, Athens, GR (solo)
2020 – Condo Complex London, Hot Wheels Athens hosted by Corvi Mora & greengrassi for Condo London, London, UK (group)
2019 – Hypersurfacing, curated by Marina Christodoulidou, NiMAC (Nicosia Municipal Art Center), Nicosia, CY, Nicosia, CY (group)
2018 – Fair-face Elysée, off-site project, curated by Peter Eramian, Thkio Ppalies, Nicosia, CY (solo)
2017 – The Future of Colour, curated by Jan Verwoert, Cyprus Pavilion at Biennale Arte 2017, Venice, IT (with Neoterismoi Toumazou)
Publications
2022 – Maria Toumazou: ΔΑΝΕΙKH – BORROWED, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz and Thkio Ppalies, Nicosia
2022 – Scrap Book, Point Centre for Contemporary Art and Maria Editions, Nicosia
2021 – Anachoresis: Upon Inhabiting Distances, Archive Books, Berlin
2021 – Umm Kulthum faints on stage, edited by Polys Peslikas and Jan Verwoert, Sternberg Press, Berlin (with Neoterismoi Toumazou)
2016 – Gee, Maria Editions, Nicosia
2014 – Maria†Maria†.doxc., with Marysia Gacek, Maria Editions, Nicosia
Press
2024 – Mousse Magazine: “Long Game: Maria Toumazou” by Gianmaria Andreeta
2022 – Texte Zur Kunst: “The Song Of The Bells” by Emile Rubino
2022 – Artforum: “Maria Toumazou”, Critics’ picks, by Re’al Christian
2022 – Passe-Avant: “Relocations” by Aristotelis Nikolas Mochloulis
2018 – ArtReview: “Maria Toumazou in Nicosia” by Thea Smith