Presented in collaboration with Emalin, London.
Ditch. Hitch. Dump. Pump. Athena Papadopoulos’ letters spell out innuendos, double entendres and subjective actions. Encased in epoxy resin, the grubby accoutrements of a good party—cigarettes, corkscrews, sparklers and chicken bones—suggest scenes of excess and nostalgia. The verbal assault conjured by Papadopoulos’ hybridised forms also characterises the artist’s process of making, itself a violent transformation of materials. Continuing Papadopoulos’ investigation into how everyday consumer materials are implicated in the performance of gendered roles, Subjective Action shifts the focus to language’s culpability in such constructions.
Athena Papadopoulos (b. 1988, Toronto, Canada) works across sculpture, painting, text and installation. Her practice is comprised of saturated explorations of the layered nature of female experience, where the limits of autobiography—often the point of departure for Papadopoulos’ works—are reimagined through complex materiality.
Papadopoulos has held solo exhibitions at MOSTYN Museum, Llandudno (2020); Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2019); Humber Street Gallery, Hull (2019); Emalin, London (2017); and CURA Basement, Rome (2017), among others. Selected recent group exhibitions include Museo Madre, Naples; VO Curations, London; Drawing Room, London; 57th Belgrade Biennial, Belgrade; Galerie Sultana, Paris; and David Roberts Art Foundation, London. Forthcoming exhibitions will be held at ICA, Los Angeles, and MoCA Toronto.
