VOL. XIV

How does one go about writing a press release for a young artist who’s yet to be well known, whose work is delicate, lyrical, evolving, weaving its own poetry day by day around ideas that are deep and firm, but still in the making?
How does one go about describing a show primarily made up of works that will be conceived and made on-site (at Galleria Massimo Minini), and which opens on March 25, 2014, on Tuesday, at 6 pm sharp – when the artist, I’m sure, will have just finished moving that little sculpture in back half an inch to one side because this imperceptible movement will give visitors a better viewing angle?
Haris Epaminonda and I have been talking about her eagerly anticipated show for two years now; for the last year in particular, we’ve been writing back and forth quite a bit to discuss it, and she keeps me updated on its progress.
But it’s like Robert Barry said: “Something that is unlike anything else and not completely understood or ever completely realized and can seem absurd, and yet with a ring of truth and beauty that is deeply personal…”
In this sense Epaminonda’s works are conceptual, due to the undefined element of chance that they leave open, the aura of minimalist beauty that they give off, the fragility of these forms, made of nothing and yet so present in the space.Simple forms, thin rectangular shapes, which use gold leaf, wax, soft colors, in homage to the approach of Carlo Scarpa, his gorgeous details, geometric structures, poetic results.
A truly Mediterranean tribute, from an artist born – like Venus – in Cyprus, though she lives in Berlin like so many great figures of our time. Her very first show in Italy, that eternal land of art, will be opening March 14 at Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice, a great art capital of the region with time-honored ties to her native island; and then, right on its heels, this second one at our gallery.