PHANTASMA
Art Exhibition
June 3rd – September 28th 2017
Bazeos Tower – Naxos
The artists:
Irini Gonou (GR)
Born in Athens, Irini Gonou graduated from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts and from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, where she lived for eleven years. She has shown her artwork in thirty solo exhibitions in Greece, France, Belgium, Germany, UK, USA, Egypt and Norway. Her solo exhibition Al-Khatt, the magic script on 2009 was held in the Museum of Islamic Arts in Athens. What is more, she has participated in a numerous group exhibitions in Greece and abroad. Her artwork is included in several Museum collections, Municipal Galleries, private Museums and Foundations, as well as to a variety of important private collections in Greece and abroad.
She lives and works in Athens and teaches regular workshops on the Mediterranean Scripts in the Benaki Museum of Athens.
http://irinigonou.gr/
Miyuki Kido (JP)
Born in Hiroshima, living in Kyoto. She studied at Jyoshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo. She have shown her work in solo and selected exhibitions in Japan and abroad. She studied oil painting, but now her main field of art work is sight specific installation. She always picks her materials up from her ordinary life and reconstructs it. “Sometimes one simple action will completely transform our sight. I'd like to create special landscape that has functions to transform our daily life slightly but surely” she said. She has participated in Art Festivals and artist in residence programs in Japan, Finland, Austria, Korea, Iceland, Hungary and Turkey.
https://miyuki-kido.culturalspot.org/home
Yorgos Papafigos (GR)
He was born in Tyrnavos, Greece in 1989. He studied at the School of Fine Art of the Visual and Applied Arts Department of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Yannis Fokas studio). MA Royal College of Art - moving image 2016-2018. He lives and works in London.
He has presented his work in the solo show Reality of Paradox at Kappatos Gallery, Αθήνα (2015) and in group shows in museums and galleries in Greece and abroad, including WIP show, Royal college of art, Battersea, London(2017), The right to be human, Goethe institute, Thessaloniki(2017), The Untold Secrets of an Image, Art-Thessaloniki-Open Art Lab, Thessaloniki (2016), Kafka, Yeni Djami, Thessaloniki (2015), Beirut Art Fair-Kappatos Gallery, Βeirut (2015), HEROES ARE DEAD LONG LIVE THE HEROES - Kodra Fresh, Μacedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki (2014) and Physis, Griechischen Kulturstiftung, Βerlin and Trier (2013). He has participated in artist residences in Germany, Greece and Bulgaria. Works of his are held in private collections and Greece and internationally.
http://cargocollective.com/papafigos
Collin Mura-smith (USA)
Collin Mura-smith is half Japanese and half American Truck Driver. He is a sculptor and digital artist. He received an MFA in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an MFA in Computer Animation from The School of Visual Arts in NYC. He has shown his art work in exhibitions in the US, Europe, the Caribbean, Iceland, Mexico and South Korea. Collin’s background also includes creating art for motion pictures, television and leading branding agencies. He currently resides in West Orange, NJ with his Viking wife, two opinionated children and one very nervous cat.
http://portfolios.sva.edu/collinmura
Manuela Zervudachi (FR)
Manuela Zervudachi was born in London in 1963.
She started her studies at Saci Florence in 1982 and then moved to New York to do her Bachelor of Fine Fine's degree at Parsons School of Design specializing in sculpture.
She then settled in Tuscany in 1988, in Pietrasanta, a true Mecca for sculpture, where she learned, following the teachings of the renowned sculptor Fiore de Henriquez, how to work the lost wax process and transform her plaster, wax or clay prototypes into bronze.
Her work reveals a fascination for humankind in the environment and inspired by nature he nourishes her work with the influxes between man and the organic world. She has worked successively around the themes of the Cosmos, water, body and symbolism, Time, the seed and alchemy.
She moved in 1991 with her family to Paris, where Manuela Zervudachi regularly exhibits in London, Paris, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Switzerland. Meanwhile, she regularly collaborates with interior designers, landscape gardeners or collectors to produce commissions and pieces on order worldwide.
http://manuelazervudachi.com
The curator:
Mario Vazaios
Graduated from Athens University of Economics, with parallel studies in French Literature at Strasbourg’s University, History of Art and Museology, he has been active in the Financial Sector since 1990, in important banking companies.
As Director of AEON a Non-Profit Association since 2001, he has been responsible for the organisation of the Naxos Festival that takes place at the family 17th century tower on the island of Naxos, in the Cyclades.
The Naxos Festival is currently a platform for inter-cultural meetings that hosts Greek and foreign artists. It includes fine arts exhibitions, theatrical and musical performances, dance and other various cultural activities.
Assistant curator:
Klaus Pfeiffer
Born and educated in Germany, he has travelled in Greece since 1965. Resides and works on Naxos since 1974. He lives with his wife Marlene in the old Venetian castle "To Kastro", his studio is now in the former stables of the Palazzo Coronello at the East gate of the castle where he moved from the Ursuline convent. In 1980 he became Naxian citizen, he showed his works in more then 100 one-man shows and group exhibitions in Europe, USA, Africa and Asia.
www.flypfeifferfly.com
The venue:
Bazeos Tower
On the 12th Km of the main road linking the capital city of Naxos (Chora), with the inland, the Bazeos Tower dominates the land leading to the seacoast of Agiassos. The tower dates back to the 17th century. At first, this tower functioned as a monastery and was called monastery of the Holy Cross (“Timios Stavros”). By the end of the 19th century, the tower was bought by the Bazeos (Baseggio) family, whose descendants are the current owners. Since 2001, when the first renovation phase was completed, the monument remains open to the public through the Naxos Festival activities which take place here every summer. In nowadays the tower is one of the most well-known and popular monuments of Naxos.
http://bazeostower.gr