The exhibition Camouflage is Despina Petridou’s first solo exhibition and presents artworks created during the past year, since the artist’s return to Cyprus after her studies at Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. Petridou’s art practice is based on the exploration of the ‘history of the self’, cultural identity and the ‘sense of belonging’, through the spectrum of materiality.

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The work presented in the exhibition is informed by site-specific personal memories, experiences and narratives, reflecting the artist’s background, as a woman growing up in Cyprus and more specifically in Ammochostos region. The politically contested nature of the island’s land and sea, alongside the uniqueness and essentiality of these natural entities for the citizens of Ammochostos, has placed these two elements at the foundation of the work presented. Considering the materiality, formation and structures found within natural and urban landscapes, these artworks aim to create tangible embodiments of memories based on the specificities of surfaces, textures and materials, characterised by their conflicting yet harmonious co-existence.

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This body of work presents a multi-layered visual narrative, created by juxtaposing or integrating synthetic and organic materials, such as building gypsum, silicone, soil and rust. The processes used by the artist explore, extend and embrace the qualities of these materials and create contrasting surfaces that blur the lines between painting and sculpture. The fluid patterns that are dominant in the work reflect the fragility and unpredictability of the natural environment in association with human’s need for structure and purpose, present in the geometry and linear lines that contain and ‘tame’ these patterns within the work. The title of the exhibition (Camouflage) derives from the combination of these patterns and coloration in the work, referring to a phenomenon initially found in nature, posing questions around identity and the ‘sense of belonging,’ when comparing oneself with their surroundings.

 

Exhibition Catalogue  https://issuu.com/home/published/final_catalogue_inc._cover_single_pages_

 

More information on artworks and sale enquiries 

https://the-ogallery.com/artist/despina-petridou-camouflage/