Anorioton: Christina Papaioannu and Charoula Nikolaidou

About

Charoula Nikolaidou

Charoula’s figurative paintings are emotional charged and concerned with the relationship between human beings and the space and time they inhabit. “In my work I focus on gestural writing and I treat the painting surface as a place of recording emotions, through the manipulation of the tensions of the Scriptures, colour and form.” She says.

Charloula has an extensive exhibition history showing at galleries including the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, at Kifissia and Kolonaki, Athens and in Geneva, Switzerland. She had a highly successful solo show at Isnotgallery, Nicosia, Cyprus and was recently shown among the biggest names in contemporary Greek art at the Cultural and Congress Centre, Heraklion, Crete. The Greek academic Efthimis Lazongas (Sorbonne University, Paris, History of Art Professor at ASFA) describes her work as reminiscent of the “metaphysical landscapes of De Chirico.” She lives and works in Thessalonki.

Christina Papaioannou

Born in Thessaloniki, Christina Papaioannou is a versatile artist who dates the true beginning of her artistic career back in her childhood years when she developed her love for the two things that were meant to shape her as a person: visual arts and music. Her large-scale paintings are characterised by abstract female forms, sometimes solitary and at other times in groups. The works are both poetic and primitive and characterised by meditative qualities that offer universal messages to their viewers. “I create narratives that deal with the idea of intermediate time, accumulation of information and fragments of memory.” She says.

Christina’s career highlights include participating in two consecutive years at the international contemporary art fair, Art Thessaloniki. She has exhibited in nine group exhibitions in Mainland Greece, Crete and Cyprus held in venues including the Museum of Visual Arts, Heraklion and the Cultural and Congress Centre, Heraklion. She currently lives and works in Athens. 

As mother (Charoula) and daughter (Christina) these two women artists, living in different cities share artistic ideas and practices regularly. Working quite separately but in close communication having practiced painting throughout their entire lives. Common threads can be found through their work. Both artists present art as a poetic catharsis to the challenges of life.