Venue

KALFAYAN GALLERIES | ATHENS

11 Haritos Street
106 75 Kolonaki
Athens 

Press Release

What characterizes the recent work of Rania Bellou, “Archetypal Memories” at the Kalfayan Galleries is the renewal of memories in order to construct a new identity. 

As the curator of the exhibition, Dorothea Konteletzidou, states, “The artist does not de-construct her surface, but through repeated interventions she approaches a kind of accomplishment after creating what she has named. 

“Old photographs, faded by the passage of time, photographs that have been he creation of new myths, a new poetic history which the artist interprets, narrates and comments upon with contemporary means. 

“The mural installation “describes” the character of a woman that is defined by and for her.  As creator-woman-spectator, the artist infuses in the images another way of life, a life that is interpreted as a way of assessing all those images that lack memories.

“Parallel to the installation “Living in a Cerebral Fortress”, the ivy and the video animation describe a full day in which the climatic conditions determine once again a new identity.”

Rania Bellou

The Greek artist Rania Bellou (b. 1982, Thessaloniki, Greece) graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London in Scenography (M.A.) and from the School of Fine Arts at the Aristotelian University in Thessaloniki, Greece. She lives and works in London.

She has participated in various exhibitions and art festivals in Greece and abroad, such as in Albania, Switzerland, USA, Mexico and England. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Between I and Me’ (solo show), Europe House (London, 2012); ‘Memory for Forgetfulness’ (solo show), Kalfayan Galleries (Athens, 2011); ‘London Screen’ (group exhibition), Ex-Teresa Museum of Contemporary Art (Mexico City, 2011) and ‘British Perception’ (group show), National School for the Arts (Mexico City, 2011). In 2012, she exhibited at the III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (strategic project “Inconclusive Analysis”), and in 2010 at the 2nd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art titled ‘Qui Vive’, the LUCCADigitalPHOTOFest in Lucca Italy, KODRA International Festival Action Field KODRA 10 (10th Visual Arts Festival), Thessaloniki and at the ‘Oasis and A-oasis’ (group show) at the Skironio Museum Polychronopoulos in Greece, among other venues. In 2008 she won 1st Prize in a competition sponsored by the Yiannis and Zoe Spyropoulos Foundation. In 2009 she exhibited at the ‘Summer Exhibition’ of The Royal Academy of Arts in London, at the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennial of Contemporary Art (Exhibition: ‘1001+1 Praxis’). In the same year Kalfayan Galleries (Thessaloniki) presented her solo show titled ‘Living in a Cerebral Fortress’.

Rania Bellou is a multi-media artist, whose work questions the boundaries between reality and illusion, real and unreal using fragments from the passage of time. She is represented by Kalfayan Galleries, Athens – Thessaloniki.