Zoumboulakis Galleries present Ioanna Ralli’s solo exhibition “Cosmomorphy”, a series of works, tempera on paper.
Large scale squares and parallelograms full of colors and repeated patterns unfold a whole period, an aspect of Ioanna Rallis’s world. They began as a background for her photographs and gradually they broke away as independent works. They bring in mind the “Mandalas”, works which express harmony and entirety in various spiritual traditions.
In a time of great psychological pressure and sense of entrapment for most of the people, these works lighten the human soul. Even though they started as a method of reorganization for Ralli, in a most difficult period of her life, as a form of exercise, these works ended up as an independent unit of works following their own course. She just had to follow them on their path and keep working.
Do these works constitute a “nonrepresentational self-portrait” as the Art Historian Christine Petrinou wonders in the text included in the exhibition book?
The viewer is invited to read in these works, the experience and the world of the artist but ends up to think his/her own position in the surrounding world.
Ralli herself notes on her work: “As I learned later on, Jung had noticed that many of his
patients would create mandalas- the symmetrical designs done by Buddhist monks- when in crisis. An unconscious act of the psyche when in the midst of chaos, in order to reorganize itself.
This described exactly what I had unconsciously been doing. My world had been shaken up and my psyche was trying to find some new order. This is how these works began and evolved allowing me a glimpse of the shape of my world. Hence Cosmomorphy. The square was abandoned along the path”.
Petrinou comments: “We are faced with a dance of pictures and emotions. Her works converge on a critical review of reverie, nostalgia, metaphysics”.
Brief CV:
Ioanna Ralli was born in 1960 in Athens. She studied Mass Communication (Bsc) at Boston University and Photography, Painting and Graphic Design at the New England School of Art and Design. In 1986 she completed her Master degree (MFA) in Graphic Design at Boston University. She has presented nine solo shows in Greece, while she has participated in many group shows in Europe and the U.S.A. Her works are to be found in private collections and museums. The exhibition “Cosmomorphy” is her third solo exhibition in Zoumboulakis Galleries.
In the course of the exhibition the relative book published by Cube Art Editions will be available for sale at Zoumboulakis Galleries-20 Kolonaki Square.
ViewingRoom
ExhibitionWorks
Untitled, 2021, Tempera on paper, 86x31 cm
Untitled, 2021, Tempera on paper, 86x32,5 cm
Untitled, 2021, Tempera on paper, 86x34 cm
Untitled, 2021, Tempera on paper, 68x68 cm
Untitled, 2021, Tempera on paper, 68x68 cm
Untitled, 2021, Tempera on paper, 68x68 cm
Ioanna Ralli was born in 1960 in Athens.
She studied Mass Communication (Bsc) at Boston University and Photography, Painting and Graphic Design at the New England School of Art and Design.
In 1986 she completed her Master degree (MFA) in Graphic Design at Boston University.
She has presented nine solo shows in Greece, while she has participated in many group shows in Europe and the U.S.A. Her works are to be found in private collections and museums.
