Argyroiliopoulou Annita (1960)

Born in Athens in 1960, she obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Deree College (1979-1983) and then studied painting at the ASFA under N Kessanlis (1984-1989). From 2004 to this day she teaches art in secondary education, She has taught drawing, colouring techniques and constructions at public and private schools, and since 1993 she provides private preparatory tuition for the Foundation Courses of British art schools. Also, from 1982 to 1996 she designed and constructed sets for Greek films.
In her first solo exhibition (1993, Medusa +1) she presents 3D constructions of wire and other flexible or lightweight materials (wickerwork, fabric, polyester) with references to the plant and animal kingdom or to biomorphic beings, creating an eerie setting. The pronounced structure of the compositions are combined with the weightless, almost ethereal forms that allude to inner quests. In Fertile Land (Epikentro, 2000) she shows a tendency for an existential quest around the female nature and fertility. In Prison of Light (Chios Castle, 2005), austere glass works explore such fundamental matters of human existence as life, light, darkness and death. In 2011 she creates Prothesis, an environment specifically designed for the old food kitchen of Rhodes (Museum of Modern-Greek Art). In the exhibition Shortly before (Ekfrassi Art Gallery –Yanna Grammatopoulou, 2012) she focuses on the human figure, mainly children, at the threshold between physical and metaphysical presence; five years later, the same venue hosts Unspoken, a series of large-scale drawings on Plexiglas in which wild animals are staring intensely at the viewer. Overall, her art is characterized by precise drawing, suitably selected materials and the frequent references to archetypal symbols or to the fundamental questions around human nature.
She has had solo exhibitions in Greece and participated in dozens of local and international group exhibitions: 5th Biennale of Young Artists from Mediterranean Europe 1990 (La Vieille-Charité, Marseilles 1990), Flexible Pan-European Art (Wilmslow, UK & Wroclaw, Poland, 1994), 9th International Triennale of Tapestry (Lodz, 1998), PLACES. An exhibition, an approach, a museum, a history (Benaki Museum, 2007), Memory of the Revolution; Contemporary Greek Artists (ASFA 2018), etc. Her works can be found in museums, public spaces and private collections. She is a member of the “Horror Vacui” art group.