KATIA VARVAKI

Born in Athens, Greece, Katia Varvaki is a contemporary Greek artist with long experience in descriptive art and some involvement with comic drawings. She makes acrylic and oil paintings, drawings, small sculptures and mixed-media constructions from a variety of materials.

Katia Varvaki’s most recent work includes mixed-media constructions of wooden beds, paper and plaster, and oil paintings on canvas.

The oil paintings depict views of a garden during different seasons of the year that are inhabited, though not inspirited, by human figures, particularly children. The figures are surrounded by a host of symbols: keys, ladders, clocks, birds in trees and children on branches, nests with hatching clocks and farmer’s markets selling time. The planes of color also serve as levels of time in a poetic version of the space-time continuum. Whether recollecting autobiographical memories or staging the images of dreams, the artist traces the levels of time and transports the observer through magic, myth and enigma to another reality, one divorced from the present.

The wooden beds point to manic love, conjugal fidelity, ineluctable death.

She also has created a large series of wall-mounted mixed-media constructions, where colorful trees dominate the frame (a reference to life) in their symbolic sense.

Studies: 1986-1991, Painting, Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece, under professors Τ. Patraskidhis and D. Mytaras.

She is a member of the Greek Chamber of Fine Arts.

Katia Varvaki’s work has been exhibited in over 16 solo exhibitions in Greece and Cyprus. She also has participated in more than 40 group exhibitions in Greece, London, Brussels and Cairo.

Solo Shows

1991: Athens, Ora gallery, “New Creators”
1993: Cyprus, Nicosia, Opus gallery
1994: Salonica, Anny Balta gallery
1995: Piraeus, Αstrolavos gallery
1997: Athens, gallery Espace Kreonidis. Catalogue
1997: Athens, Hilton Hotel, Αrt Café
1997: Crete, Rethimnο, Dhimito gallery
1998: Cyprus, Nicosia, Opus gallery
1998: Chalkidha, gallery Τessera
2000: Athens, Αstrolavos gallery. Catalogue
2002: Zakinthos, Krypti gallery
2006: Athens, Αstrolavos gallery. Catalogue
2008: Ioannina, Amymone gallery. Catalogue
2009: Meghara, “Theognis”
2010: Alexandroupolis, Art gallery
2014: Athens, Αstrolavos gallery. Catalogue
2015: Kefalonia, Argostoli, “Mouikis”
2016: Andros, “Aneroussa”

Selected Group Exhibitions

1991: Bruxell , «New European Artists»
1992: London, Barbican Center, ΒΡ Painting Collections
1993: Athens, Papadhopoulou gallery
1994: Crete, Rethimno, Dhimito gallery
1994: Egypt, Cairo, 5th Biennale of Mediterranean States
1996: Egypt, Cairo, 6th Biennale of Mediterranean States
2001, 2002, 2003, 2005: Athens, Astrolavos gallery, “Kites”
1997: Athens, Hellenic American Union, «domestic-ities+urban-ities»
2009 : Athens, Technopolis, “The human figure in art”
2012: Piraeus, Art Prisma gallery, “Female Gender”
2012: Piraeus, Art Prisma gallery, “My name is red”
2012: Kifissia, Tsichritzis Visual Arts Foundation, “Christmas Stories”
2012: Athens, IANOS gallery bookshop, “90 Cartes Postales from Smyrni”
2013: Athens, Astrolavos gallery, “Visual Dialogues”
2016: London, Belgravia gallery, “Greek Art Today”
2017: Piraeus, Art Prisma gallery , “7 female artists in communication”