Maria Polyzoidou – “Incident”
Opening: Saturday, February 20, 2016, 4 to 6 PM
Exhibition: February 22 to April 9, 2016
Incident is the first exhibition of Maria Polyzoidou in Germany. Her painting is rooted in the tradition of realism. However, she shifts the connection to the subject by incorporating forms of digital image production and countering the data surface with an impenetrable representation. The technological dimension manifests in the saturated colors of the canvas without any expressive gesture; digital color manipulation is met with subtle colorism, and the combination of heterogeneous image elements into an unshakeable unity transforms the limitless availability of images. Polyzoidou draws from both her archive of personal images and the inventory of images circulating online. Intimate images are separated from the individual and claim public visibility, while anonymously produced and widely accessible images are granted unique significance. Polyzoidou's painting engages with the realms of the private and the public, the spheres of virtuality and physicality—each image is a momentary concretization of an unstable and destabilizing intersection of various domains.
The images function as fragments, some appearing as tightly cropped details of an expansive constellation. The objects are arranged in such a way that no further change seems conceivable. They are characterized by immobility, a heavy silence, and closedness (even when a stage-like space is depicted), as well as distance (no matter how close an object may be). Their cohesion arises from painterly pressure, which is further intensified by theatrical elements of baroque pathos. The objects do not come together on their own; rather, their connection is imposed from the outside and retroactively. However irreversible this may seem, it remains precarious. The plastically painted hand of a child rests on a completely flat color surface that reads as a back; the projection of a black-and-white image on the wall collides with an inflated, intensely red bedspread; the faintly shimmering lights of a Christmas tree cannot be reconciled with the brightly illuminated backrest of a sofa. The differentiated objects prompt the introduction of contours, cuts, and sharp edges that slice through each image.