Unravel
Ketta Ioannidou

“Unravel” is a solo presentation by the Brooklyn-based artist Ketta Ioannidou featuring 7 paintings from 2022 – 2023.  Migrating between water, sky and land, Ketta Ioannidou’s paintings draw inspiration from rippling waters, wilty florals, and moody skies in a process that feels like layering memories, simplifying them down to their essence – the shapes, the colors, the feelings. Her paintings invoke morphing psychological landscapes that are often submerged in water, influenced by her Mediterranean heritage and upbringing as well as science fiction novels like J.G. Ballard’s A Drowned World, which depicts a post-apocalyptic future where global warming has caused the majority of the Earth to become uninhabitable and strange dreams and unconscious urges play with the survivors’ mindset.

Ioannidou often paints wet on wet, blending and softening the edges of each brushstroke until they appear liquid or in motion, similar to effects the Impressionists achieved with their work. Ioannidou’s paintings extract colors from her surrounding natural environment, whether that is the waterfront in Brooklyn or the Mediterranean island of Cyprus where she grew up, adjusting hue and saturation levels to make the works more exaggerated and give them an otherworldly quality. Flurries of deep vibrant hues are blended, dripped, blurred, and soaked on the canvas. Florals turn to camouflage and sun rays convert to explosions, adopting aspects of a psychological experience of nature and revealing a balance between light and darkness. In a pursuit to investigate personal relationships to cultural dislocation and memory, nature, and site, the works result in painterly fleeting moments, abstracted constellations, and symbolic works about memory and loss.

As Thierry Goldberg Gallery stated, “Ioannidou invites us into a realm of ethereal fluidity and introspection. Her playful painting process results in work that resonates with wonder and emotional depth. Through the interplay of abstract forms, vibrant colors, and layered compositions, she captivates viewers within transcendent landscapes. As we immerse ourselves in her mesmerizing visual journey, we are reminded of the boundless possibilities that lie within the realm of abstraction, and the transformative power of painting to connect with our innermost selves.”

About the Artist

Ketta Ioannidou (born Nicosia, Cyprus) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Ioannidou holds an MFA from School of Visual Arts and a BA (Honours) from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Ioannidou represented Cyprus in the Cairo and Alexandria Biennales in Egypt and the 18th Asian Biennale in Bangladesh. She has had solo exhibitions at Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York, NY; Chashama One Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn NY; The Yard, Lower East Side, NY; South Oxford Space, Brooklyn, NY; and The Centre of Contemporary Art Diatopos, Nicosia, Cyprus. Ioannidou has participated in group exhibitions at Thierry Goldberg, New York, NY; SPRING/BREAK Art Show, New York, NY; SPRING/BREAK Art Show, Los Angeles; Cindy Rucker Gallery, New York, NY; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY; NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY; Kustera Projects, Brooklyn, NY, and Field of Play Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Reviews include the New York Times, Art in America, Flash Art, the Brooklyn Rail, Two Coats of Paint, and Hyperallergic.

For more information on Ketta Ioannidou, visit her website and follow her Instagram.