Mark of Cain | Irini Diadou
A visual manifesto on violence, depicted on the canvas as an act of personal liberation
In the exhibition Mark of Cain Irini Diadou’s paintings perform as a kind of visual manifesto on the constant and unspeakable violence present since the beginning of the world, mutated as an act of personal liberation and exorcism of evil.
The art historian Bia Papadopoulou writes about the exhibition Mark of Cain: "Irini Diadou wanders through the history of mankind evoking, with her painting, actual facts that stir us up and awaken us. Her artworks, non-representational scenes from a macabre theatre of the absurd, imply threatening and hostile situations and raise feelings of precariousness…
horrendous moments of history depicted on the canvas have mutated into an act of personal liberation and exorcism of evil by the artist. Violent gestures that automatically seem to externalize both the conscious and the unconscious, outline compositions that evoke associations with explosions, darkness, blood, scorched earth.
Diadou’s paintings, under the guise of the lyrical veil as well as the dynamic fist of Abstraction and belonging to a profoundly political and social Art, perform as a kind of visual manifesto. The exhibition highlights the everlasting unspeakable violence, present since the beginning of the world as suggested by its title’s biblical reference to Cain, by raising moral questions about human nature itself."
One more exhibition by the painter, entitled Safe Space at the nearby bookstore and art space Photagogos, acts dialectically with the main exhibition, composing a treatise on violence and a narrative of a more optimistic view of the world. With regard to the exhibition Safe-place Bia Papadopoulou points out: "Here, small-scale works are composed by serene, horizontal brush gestures. The titles reveal that these are landscapes of calm seas and clear skies which seem to promise arrival to harbours of places safe, peaceful, utopian."
Curators: Irini Diadou in collaboration with Bia Papadopoulou.
Curator's text, Bia Papadopoulou
Special thanks to: Bia Papadopoulou, Julia Tsiakiris, Lina Bebi, Yannis Perdicoyannis for their valuable help.
