Inside Antigoni Solomonidou-Drousiotou's Exhibition
A memorable photo exhibition at Isnotgallery
After its success at Photagogos, in Athens, decorated photographer Antigoni Solomonidou-Drousiotou brings her individual exhibition, ‘...en somati’ to the ‘Isnotgallery’ gallery in Nicosia. This collection is the first part of her book ‘Psycho-graphies’, published by ‘To Rodakio’. It consists of black & white photos, dating from 1997 to 2023. A period which reflects the transition from black-and-white film to digital reality.
As she stated ‘for partners trusted my call for ‘...en somati’s’ introspection. Naked, free of stereotypes and behaviours, they let uninvited light shape their bodies imperfectly. Without necessities and touchups. Without life cloaks. We would search for soul in magical places, charged with a mysterious aura. That timeless piece of deification. And for fractions of a second, we would become one with the universe’s energy.’
Art historian Lida Kazantzaki writes under the title ‘Illuminating the body ‘without touchups’: ‘The creator opens up her own way, treading on the trails of representatives of the 20th-century French movement of humanistic photography, The body speaks. With its posture and movement, it states its impulsivity and temperance, the memories of good and bad experiences it carries from a young age, and its conscious or unexpressed desires. The body is our main medium of communication with the Other, the familiar and the strange. Its language reflects our being and is uncovered unpredictably when it is injured by abusive behaviours, it is trapped by externally enforced suffocating limits, no matter how well we may hide it behind pretentious and well-educated societal interventions and conventions, articles of clothing or touchups.’
Photographer Antigoni Solomonidou-Drousiotou presents it naked ‘without touchups or life cloaks’, as she states, in her latest exhibition at the bookstore Photagogos, in the centre of Athens. The title ‘PSYCHO-GRAPHIES / SOUL-PICS’ shows her intentions from the start, which are included within the infrastructure of this form of art, that began solidifying its place as an independent genre at the end of the 19th century. The creator opens up her own way, treading on the trails of representatives of the 20th-century French movement of humanistic photography. Much like them she sets man at the epicenter and selects everyday, but strictly familiar to her, people, as ‘models’, she photographs them in black and white, but in contrast to them not in the city’s streets, but in ethereal, internal or explosive, natural landscapes. Above all, she focuses her lens on their body and its language. Following, during her long journey, the evolution of art and its means of realisation, from film to digital technology and editing.
Stories of bodies that narrate, simultaneously dress and undress, stereotypes and meanings. They touch on subjects such as impermanence, the ephemeral and the elusive. The eye’s decision conceives beauty, maybe even stimulates desire. Inevitably, though, the instant reception of image gives way to the necessity of personal introspection and exploration.
The gaze’s authority finds strong resistance and retreats. The dominance of appearances and the delusion of clairvoyance weaken and turn to creative actions. Bodies disintegrate, liquify and become one with their surroundings.
Stone, water, flesh, shadows and light collaborate in an eternal soul movement. It is obvious that the ‘captivity’ of the founding moment of the unequivocal moment is not enough. It is transfigured into a choreographed psychography on an out-of-space-and-time stage, where silence is visible. Meaning and essence are, after all, located in the space between signifier and signified.
Antigonis’s visual rhetoric operates exactly in this in-between space. Bleariness, the alteration of clarity, the relinquishing of the obvious, and the impression of the intangible, all cooperate with our intention. It creates a condition of her own, that will lead us to a deeply personal journey. Hers and ours. At the timeless and the whole.
Decorated photographer and journalist, Antigoni Solomonidou-Drousiotou was born in Limassol, Cyprus. She made her first steps in photography, by the side of internationally renowned photographer and one of Magnum Agency’s founders, George Rodger.
Next, she attended ‘Documentary Photography’, at the Gwent College of Higher Education, in Newport, Wales, under the guidance of Magnum Agency’s famous photographer, David Hum. With the internal need for communication as a guide, she began her creative journey in 1977, with mostly black and white photographs. Her lifelong motto is ‘Capturing emotions; my task in life’.
She has presented her work in many individual photo exhibitions in Cyprus [Limassol 1978, 1992, 1996, 2004 | Nicosia 1986, 1997 | Ayia Napa 1998 | Deryneia 2005] and abroad [Geneva 1979 | Athens 1989 | London 1989 | Berlin 1992 | Patras 2006 | Brussels: European Committee (Berlaymont Presidents’ Gallery) and the European Board (Lex Building) 2012 | New York and United Nations (United Nations’ Secretarial Lobby) 2013 | Washington (United States Capitol) 2014 | London (London School of Economics for the twentieth anniversary of Hellenic Observatory) 2016] | Photagogos, Athens, Greece 2023.
She took part in many team exhibitions and events, including international biennale, representing Cyprus; New Mediterranean Artists Biennale in Salonika (1986) | International Month of Photography in Athens (1989), ‘Greek Festival in London’ at the Queen Elisabeth Hall, London (1989), ‘Women, Creators of two seas’, Cultural Capital ‘97, Salonika (1997). First International Forum for Peace by Meditteranean Women Creators, Rhodes (2000), ‘First Limassol Photography Festival Limassol’ (2022).
She has been honoured with four internationally recognised awards; Golden medal at the 3rd Commonwealth Photography Exhibition in Hong Kong (1983) | Silver Medal at the 4th Commonwealth Photography Exhibition in Edinburgh (1986) | Commonwealth Photography Award (1987) | ‘Woman of the Year’ in Madame Figaro’s ‘Creator’ category (2022).
During her artistic career, she has published five photography books; ‘Seasons in Limassol’, Leosun, Limassol 1990 | ‘Ek Vatheon’, Photo Anthology, Popular Bank Cultural Centre, Nicosia 1997 | ‘Kontra sto Teichos’, Cultural Office AKEL, Nicosia 2002 | ‘MeRES EgKLEISMOu/LoCKdown DAyS’, To Rodakio, Athens 2020 | ‘Psycho-graphies’, To Rodakio, Athens 2023.
Furthermore, she is the author of ‘My Life in First Person’, which features historical interviews from top personalities in Cyprus, Livani Publishing, Athens 2004. Her work is displayed in private collections all over the world.
The exhibition will be prefaced by Andreas D. Mavrogiannis and Yannis Toumazis.
