Sandra Christou

Christou Sandra

Born in Athens, she studied Painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts under Dimitris Mytaras, Yorghos Mavroidis, Yannis Moralis, Elias Dekoulakos and Nikos Kessanlis. She lives and works in Athens.

Works

Solo Exhibitions

2006

Art Space 24 Athens

2001

Art Space 24 Athens

2000

Municipal Art Gallery of Chios Chios

1998

Ersi's Gallery Athens

1996

Municipal Art Gallery of Chios Chios

1993

Homerion Cultural Centre Chios

Press

The adventure, the great adventure
is to discover something unknown,
every day, in the same face.
A. Giacometti

Throughout the history of post-war art, realist artists often found themselves on the fringes, refusing to adopt the modernist approach to painting as an evolutionary process which inexorably leads to self-purification of means, elimination of references to the world of appearances, simplification and abstraction.

Frequently, however, their intent was not to reject the modern, but to expand its limits so that it could include other possibilities. While they struggled with form and colour with painting itself and all its tools, conventions and history, as did the advocates of abstraction, they also had to ensure that their subjects did not lose their leading role and thereby become reduced to nothing more than mere vehicles for technical enquiries. That was a great wager, n adventure that has continued to this day.

Sandra Christou’s work is part of this quest. At times persisting in the generalization and flatness of modern art, and at others in the detailed description and depth of academic painting, her works have a visual boldness and energy that does not infringe on the calm disposition and sensitivity with which her figures have been rendered. While it may seem that she is simply recording or classifying the microcosm of her images without interfering in their private lives, she is at the same time staging enigmatic scenes made up of short narratives that evoke memories and dreams and stir thoughts of hidden desires. She uses the vocabulary and conventions of modern art without feeling that the particular characteristics of a portrait may threaten the freedom of her personal expression, as do the ardent exponents of post-war modernism. On the other hand, she believes that each portrait reveals something of the personal world of the model, the painter, and even the viewer, but does not seek to assert a one-dimensional, absolute truth, as is the case with the conventional representatives of traditional realism. The sincerity and worth of Christou’s paintings are measured by their power to surprise us. Not as a superficially innovative approach to portraiture, but as a penetrating glance at the achievements and speculations of contemporary realism.

 

G. Levounis
* From the catalogue of Sandra Christou’s exhibition, Art Space 24, Athens, 2006.