Art Athina 2023
Duo Exhibition in Athens, Greece with Arusha Gallery
Presenting new work by Margaret R. Thompson & Zayn Qahtani
Installation photos by Hanna Gabler
About Art Athina:
From GREEK NEWS AGENDA:
“Art Athina, the most important art fair in Greece and one of the oldest ones in Europe, is celebrating its 30th anniversary. The 2023 edition will take place on September 14-17, 2023, at the Zappeion Mansion, under the patronage of H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
Art Athina was founded by the Hellenic Art Galleries Association in 1993. Since its establishment, the fair has brought together an international audience of collectors, curators, museum directors, artists, designers, art lovers and journalists. Over time, the core of Art Athina has been enriched by national and international participation, and its multidisciplinary program has been expanded through partnerships with prestigious art professionals, museums and institutions, as well as through tributes to the local scenes of other countries and educational programs.
The 2023 fair
This year’s anniversary edition boasts a total of 67 art galleries from Greece and nine other countries, featuring a rich program of parallel events, panel discussions and educational activities. According to the organization’s Press release, the events focus "on the broader collaboration of a group of young, dynamic curators and, at the same time, on the dialog between art galleries from Greece and abroad".
The Zappeion Mansion will act as a meeting point for the proposals of visual artists, whether represented by local galleries or those traveling to Athens from Germany, France, the Netherlands, Cyprus, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Poland and Romania.
Apart from the main exhibition, parallel events also include: Projects, presenting independent art spaces, curated by Olympia Tzortzi; Talks, discussions with distinguished guests, around four different thematic axes, curated by Danae Giannoglou; a section dedicated to Video, curated by Akis Kokkinos; and a section focused on performance art, curated by Panos Giannikopoulos.”
New Paintings for Art Athina
OVERVIEW
Zayn Qahtani is a multidisciplinary artist. Her work sways between what is seen and what is felt, compiling a personal mythology along the way. Drawing on ancient cultures and nature’s diverse ecosystems, Zayn forms visual stories which seem to exist in the twilight zone - too distorted to be real, too familiar to be a dream. Her current practise explores the concept of animism, the gift-giving of a living soul to inanimate objects. Seeing the act of creation and destruction as an alchemical ritual, Zayn often works with materials borne of reincarnated sources. Pigments from plants and minerals, recycled bioplastics and papers made of tree matter, weave together with spells of poetry and pain in an unorthodox dance, binding each object with a life of its own.
Margaret R. Thompson is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She earned her Bachelors of Arts in International Studies and Visual Arts at Eckerd College with a concentration in Latin American and socio-cultural anthropology. Filtering reality through her own mythology, she weaves synesthetic responses to poetry, explorations of ritual, and a reverence to the natural world into small to large narrative paintings. Her paintings—objects made of oil, wax, raw pigment, and varied surfaces—depict fantastical worlds where the spirit reigns. Inspired by elements of the symbolist movement and magical realism, she channels dreams and the associative powers of the imagination into her practice.
Booth R9
Art Athina 2023
Zappeion Mansion
Athens
10557
Greece