Anna Maria Tsakali

Tsakali Anna-Maria
© Claire Dorn

Born in Piraeus in 1959, she was an École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts student under Leonardo Cremonini (1983-1987). Works by her can be found in the National Gallery of Greece, the Frissiras Museum, the Kouvoutsakis Art Institute, the Tellogleion Art Foundation, the National Bank of Greece, the Florina Museum of Contemporary Art, the French Ministry of Finance as well as in private collections both in Greece and abroad. She has illustrated the following books: “I Moni Klironomia” by Giorgos Ioannou (the only legacy, 1995) and “Athina, Diadromes kai Staseis” (Athens, itineraries and stops, collective work, 1999). She lives and works in Athens and Paris.

Works

Solo Exhibitions

2024

Le silence des fleurs Galerie Minsky Paris

2024

Season of Blossom Stand in Line Art Space Nicosia

2023

Body of Time Municipal Gallery of Corfu Corfu (curated by Rozalia Adamopoulou)

2022

4 Seasons Kalfayan Galleries Athens

2022

Secret Gardens Teloglion Foundation for Art A.TH.U. Thessaloniki

2018

Galerie Minsky Paris

2016

Transfigurations Galerie Lefor Openo Paris

2013

Infini Végétal Musée Lambinet Versailles

2012

Labyrinthes Végétaux Galerie Lefor Openo Paris

2007

As an Antidote Kalfayan Galleries Athens

2006

Portraits of Plants Kalfayan Galleries Thessaloniki

2005

Galerie Visconti Paris

2003

Athens Art Gallery Athens

2001

15 Years of Painting Cultural Centre Lefkada

2001

Galerie Étienne de Causans Paris

1999

Athens Art Gallery Athens

1996

Titanium Gallery (Titanium Yiayiannos Gallery) Athens

1995

Galerie Jean-Louis Tapiau Paris

1993

Terracotta Art Gallery (TinT Gallery) Thessaloniki

1992

Ekfrasi – Yianna Grammatopoulou Gallery Athens

1991

Galerie Eonnet-Dupuy Paris

1991

Municipal Art Gallery of Heraklion Heraklion

1989

Ora Art and Cultural Centre Athens

Press

The Desideratum Is Painting

The Desideratum Is Poetry

In a world which fragments our sensitivity, the language of painting remains a possibility for getting to know ourselves and seeing the world afresh.

The work is “in the image and likeness” and not a mechanical construct and imitation. Just as the divine was breathed into man through “in the image and likeness”, so in the work of painting the expression of the uniqueness and complexity of the person who has produced it is made possible, but not in the ready-made.

I do not paint the human face, I paint the human look. The lost face must be recovered. I speak of the human adventure in a world which deforms our face.

In painting, what interests me is the metaphor. I need the distance which it creates. That interval which makes possible the transformation of reality. It allows me to develop my imagination freely, it provides space for a choice of features of reality and for a new composition of them, over and beyond stereotypes. In tracing and revealing a covert course followed by the soul, in making the impress of time, with all the doubts, surprises, certainties. This is a poetic process which is rendered possible through the language of painting.

The effort of organising the work, up to its final form, is what makes it possible, over and beyond my original intentions or ideas, for more profound, unseen and organic features to make their appearance. This is for me the magic of painting; the revelation of myself and of the world.

Painting is for me a form of love experienced, as I give expression to all my complexity and individuality: the greatest field of my freedom.

In flowers what attracts me is the fragility and vitality which they possess, the transient and the energising; as well as the tragic element, beauty in a dialogue with death. These are the two boundaries within which the life of man rolls on, where the power of the love for life springs up.

Many of my works show my love for the void. I believe that in every presence there is a void which corresponds to it. I attempt every time to comprehend the quality of this absence. It helps me to gain a better sense of the presence within the stretcher. Presence-absence, the two poles of my imagination, the basis of my sensibility.

 

Anna Maria Tsakali
* From the catalogue of the group exhibition “Ploes XI: In Arte Veritas”, Petros and Marika Kydoniefs Foundation, Andros, 2005.