Sofia Mitsola: Psyche of Fae O

Opening on Thursday, January 15, 6 – 9 pm
Artist talk with Sofia Mitsola & Vanessa Joan Müller, 6.30 pm

Galerie Eva Presenhuber is pleased to present Psyche of Fae O, its second solo exhibition with the London-based, Greek artist Sofia Mitsola.

The boudoir is literally a room for sulking, a female retreat and refuge for dressing, undressing, and transformation. The Marquis de Sade transformed it into a libertarian cabinet for his fantasies, while Anaïs Nin made it the setting for her erotic stories. Today, the term primarily refers to a genre of photography that commercializes posing in lingerie as an act of self-empowerment. Sofia Mitsola, by contrast, turns it into the atmospheric backdrop for her images and thus a linchpin of a reflection on how (nude) painting, with its myriad art-historical references, can be given a contemporary perspective once again.

In her new oil paintings, reincarnations of Klimt’s female characters – long a source of inspiration for her – merge with vintage porn to create a neo-Art Deco style, dominated by porcelain-white skin and cascades of red hair. Ultra-slim, naked bodies, as if levelled to the surface, stand out brightly against a golden or smoky, diffuse background, some decadently framed by fur. They push their spread legs towards the audience or pose coquettishly with a ponytail. A woman’s face emerges melancholically from a diffuse black color space, while another seems to merge with its glazed, painted surroundings. These are fleeting apparitions, slowly fading away, yet brought to the canvas with rapid brushstrokes. They intuitively recall their role models, but reduce their canonized visual language to poses and ciphers. Impressionistic backgrounds reminiscent of Bonnard’s paintings or glazed color backdrops eliminate any overly obvious historical context in favor of an open pictorial space in which an equally artificial and affecting physicality takes shape.