In Present Tense

Works included in the exhibi2on: Promenade

The central themes of Christina Dimitriadis’ work are her personal quest and an existentialist anxiety. The quest is based on human relationships: self-portraits and portraits of members of her family frequently recur in her works, in her scrutiny of the past, the present and the future. The portraits that her photographs depict hint at their mental disposition, the manner in which this develops and is transformed in relation to the environment, time, and memory. Dimitriadis photographs spaces with an inherent history or a recollection, capturing images seeking to trigger the memory and revive the dream.

The psychological and emotional human state suggested by the photographs is made manifest by means of discreet intimation. The three photographs in the exhibit constitute a triptych entitled “Promenade” three photographs of a misty beach, where the hazy and indistinct horizon as well as the faint, faded colours imply a psychological vagueness. It is a horizon of dullness, as human memory is dulled. Sky and sea seem to blend together, boundaries disappear and the landscape is transformed into a space of recollection. History is lost, and the vacancy of the almost haunted images is imbued with a sense of loss. Nonetheless, the photographs show traces of human presence in tracks on the sand. One photograph depicts a figure on the horizon: the artist’s father. A that figure emerges from an other-worldly space. Dimitriadis’ emotionally charged images indicate grief, but never cease to be enthralling and poetic. Fear and anguish, isolation and estrangement, together, however, with a profound yearning are the fundamental feelings pervading them.