Varvara Roza Galleries and The Blender Gallery are proud to present the second major solo exhibition by Charoula Nikolaidou “Emotion Lines”. The exhibition will take place at Gallery 8 in St. James’s, Mayfair, from 1st to 17th March.

The body of work exhibited in Charoula Nikolaidou’s “Emotion Lines” solo exhibition is inspired by her own encounters with other people. Nikolaidou’s body of work is exploring gender and sexuality through the iconography of the human body. In her practice, she cherishes everyday social life. Her fictional characters chill, sit and chat; sometimes they hang out in groups and sometimes they enjoy a moment of solitude. She mostly uses exaggerated colours, lines and forms attempting to subvert expectations and perceptions of the human body, creating "luminous" paintings that incorporate vibrant colours in both figures and spaces.

Through her abstract figuration and layered portraits, Nikolaidou invites the viewer to rethink how bodies behave in relationships, and to focus on the way they inhabit spaces they live in. She depicts the human body, starting from the inner soul and moving to the outside image. With the “Emotion lines” exhibition, Nikolaidou is portraying figures in a way that challenges the audience's perception, leaving some sort of narrative to be created by the viewer afterwards.

Charoula Nikolaidou is a Greek contemporary artist based In Thessaloniki, Greece. Her work has been exhibited internationally, with exhibitions in; Paris, Geneva, Madrid, Marbella, and New York City, and her second major international solo exhibition takes place in London with Varvara Roza galleries and The Blender galleries. Her work has been included in many important private collections worldwide, and in 2021 she was featured in; International Bluebee Magazine, volume 6; Voice of Artists Magazine, Issue #12, by artit.net; and Artist talk Magazine, issue 15, April 2021.

In Charoula Nikolaidou’s painted worlds, the eroticism, the inwardness and the ecstasy of existence are praised. The scene is adequately described in terms of the body: “The body is a scene. A meaning in action,” which leads us to presume a performance of form empowers the narrative of the drama. Where that which is being done is the extensibility and the ecstasy of “Being”. Alternatively it could possibly be seen that the “Body – Scene,” is a primitive and elemental (if not archetypal) force. Charoula Nikolaidou’s paintings, gestural and instinctive, are documented in a direct way.

Moving on a purely personal and experiential axis, where the perceptual elements make obvious differences. The lyrical flow of her lines encircles the vibrating bodies in continuous whirlpools. The reprinting of the scriptures alternates into a frenzy trying to absorb the movement. They overlap and repeat in a kind of self-regulating design. In this way the notion of time penetrates deep into her work. Each line, every movement denotes time; a historical testimony of her act = palimpsest.

But what matters draw the project’s alignment with the improvisation? According to G. P. Pephani; an improvised action excludes the existence of a plan that guides it, while the plan involves minimizing possible improvisational moves. But does the continuity of the project come from the intersection of an improvisation? Does any design, i.e. cohesive timing and coordinated action, ultimately require the discontinuity, the cut and the rift? The relationship that develops between the pulsating forms and the empty space is contradictory and complementary at the same time. The view of Ch. Nikolaidou expresses the notion of silence, reminding the metaphysical landscapes of De Chirico.

In the end, Charoula Nikolaidou can be assessed as an active stage where the body and the spirit converge and diverge, the external and internal world, love - loneliness, emphatically emphasising the animosity of life and the poetry of painting, as a cathartic value against this agony.

(Curatorial statement by Efthimis Lazongas, Art Historian)