Zoumboulakis Gallery presents Aliki Palaska’s latest solo show titled “Waltzing Matilda”, curated by Apostolis Artinos, from October 10 until November 2, 2024.
“In her latest solo exhibition, “Waltzing Matilda”, * Aliki Palaska creates a painterly setting for her new series of sculptures. Makeshift skeletons dressed with thousands of scraps of fabric. Anthropomorphic figures, some coming from art history, like the lady-in-waiting who attends to the young princess from Velázquez’ Las Meninas, and others from pop culture, like the clone hero from Star Wars or the geisha figure as the staple symbol of an enduring exoticism, are images that stand out in this series of works.
The painted as well as the sculpted works of Palaska exude a tone of pleasure; a delirium of passion that stimulates the creative gesture and tests it in its endless manifestations. There is a riveting here, a moment of stunning that opens up in time. […]
The slow time of these works and the gesture of handiwork. The rags of Palaska embody the kind of labour that reveals its agent in a slow, almost stilled time; a time beyond the crisis that our current age has proved to be. In the way they are articulated, tied to one another in the shelter of the studio, they become part of a recently emerged culture that attempts to taste the secret import of traditional handicraft through a contemporary experience—a trying yet highly resilient experience. These sculptures look like heaps of fabrics, like Pistoletto’s Venus of the Rags; ephemeral, changeable patterns. Their humble origin is second-hand clothing that Palaska obsessively collected during lockdown and then improvised with their heaps in her studio. A comment on overconsumption, on the consumer passion that accumulates garbage on our exhausted planet. Fabrics and colours kept shifting place and giving shape to the very life of the studio and its unbridled changes”.
* Waltzing Matilda, from a verse by Tom Waits, means travelling with one’s possessions in a bundle strung on one’s back. The rag formations of Aliki Palaska also allude to this kind of improvised living and its perpetual transformations.
At the opening night, at 8 pm, the artist Dimitris Ameladiotis will present the performance Grid, where he will attempt to converse with Palaska’ s sculpture works through verse recitation and ceremonial motions.
Short Bio: Aliki Palaska lives and works in Athens She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts – BA Painting, Sculpture (George A. Lappas studio) and at the Concordia University, Montreal, Sculpture, Ceramics and Fibres. She started exhibiting in 1993.
Recent group and solo shows include: 2024 Ink and Stone, curated by Georgia Liapi, Zoumboulakis gallery, Athens | 2023 Native Language, Back To Athens, Athens, curated by Apostolis Artinos | 2022 Pott/Pott, curated by Apostolis Artinos, Modern Pottery Museum, Athens | Power Objects (solo show), Francoise Heitsh, Munich | Icy Et La, Francoise Heitsh,-Maison d’ Artistes, Saint Raphaël | Revalue | I. Part, Francoise Heitsch, Munich | 2018 Moving Waters (solo show), Ekfrasi Yianna Grammatopoulou Art Gallery, Athens | 2017 Report on Cases, curated by Christoforos Marinos, Zoumboulakis Galleries, Athens | Dwellings and Imprints (solo show), Francoise Heitsch, Munich | 2016 Flying Over The Abyss, curated by Dimitris Palaiocrassas, NEON, Athens Conservatoire | 2015 Terrapolis, curated by Iwona Blazwick, NEON and Whitechapel Gallery, French School, Athens | Broken Identities | Breathing Space (solo show), Francoise Heitsh, Munich | Synthesis, curated by Christina Petrinou, Francoise Heitsh, Munich.
