Art and Pictures in the Suburbs
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In Art and Pictures in the Suburbs Kyriakos Kyriakides acquaints himself with two relationships to art.
Untitled pictures of a woman lying on the floor define the first as one of inevitability. Their subject is oblique and starved of motion. Shot over several summers, the images capture her at rest, evading view and, as a consequence of her static repetition, waking life. Sympathy is drawn towards immobility through its documentation, opening up a reading of these works as self-portraiture. The act of taking them becomes an antidote to the state they so desperately describe.
Fish and Dog, sculptures made from the shedded remains of plants, define the second relationship as one of rebirth. In the summer, palms experience shedding in spurts; prioritizing new growth they push older fronds to drop. Their excess, remodeled into new life, introduces a short-lived infatuation with nature in the work, which Kyriakos describes as psychedelic. Dried up pieces of seaweed are imagined as seahorses, flatter fronds as whales, and prickly spines are shaped into the coat of a pet dog (the only domesticated animal in the show, but also the only one left unmounted). Other materials are ad-hoced in their making with curious defiance— pursuing a language of humor discovery, and wonder.
– Aristotelis Nikolas Mochloulis
Bio
Kyriakos Kyriakides (b.1996) lives and works in Nicosia, Cyprus. Art and Pictures in the Suburbs will be Kyriakides’ first solo exhibition. Recent duo and group presentations of his work include Parloir, Tournai (2024); Radio Athènes with Aristotelis Nikolas Mochloulis and Maya Tounta, Athens (2024); Emalin curated by Lauren Auder and Tosia Leniarska, London (2024); Thkio Ppalies off-site at Perneras Park with Marietta Mavrokordatou and Aristotelis Nikolas Mochloulis, Nicosia (2023); Hot Wheels Athens with Sem Lala and Jeff Wall Production, Athens (2022); The Island Club, Limassol (2022); Phenomenon, Anafi (2021); bologna cc with Marina Xenofontos, Amsterdam (2020); H3art Gallery, London (2019); and Thkio Ppalies with Aristotelis Nikolas Mochloulis and Stefanos Chrysanthou, Nicosia (2018). Early next year, Kyriakides will be included in 11 Parthenon, Ayios Andreas, 1105 Nicosia, Cyprus, a project conceived by Andre Zivanari and Haris Epaminonda.