Life, death, rebirth. Anita Xanthou deals with the Heraclitian flow of time, the eternal cosmic cycle, the uninterrupted energy of the universe. But also the "female" identity, as the title of the exhibition reveals.

She escapes to nature during the period of confinement and quarantine where she composes visual stories with herself as the protagonist. Her constant companion is a large white Styrofoam egg-like orb — or sometimes several of them in different sizes — which Xanthou directs as if they are actors.

And then, on the earthly stage, these archetypal mythological symbols carry on a conceptual and structural dialogue with the artist and "the footprints of Orpheus" scatter across the landscape like alien invaders. Carrying notes of optimism as the bearers of new life, their industrial materiality also recalls the capitalist expansion of the West.

Xanthou`s performances are improvised. They are carried out in Thessaly, Attica and Peloponnese — charged and symbolic places.

In the photographs made by Natasha Kotsambasi, the artist is immortalized in Pelioritic landscapes with old locust trees, primitive slates that resemble log-sculptures, empty beaches. But also in Tatoi after the terrible fires in the summer of 2021, in an environment full of ashes, tree carcasses and burnt earth.

 She usually performs a series of specific static poses, and is rarely captured in motion. At times, she replaces her artificial co-star with her body. It curls, echoing the shape of the "Orphan Egg". The image is twofold: egg and fetus; lifeless shell and future life.

In one photograph, the ambiguous image is reflected in the water. It traces a poetically surreal portrait, almost painterly. Its form becomes one with the sea, the rocks, the mountains, the sky. It is a peculiar body map, a mystical ritual of uniting the self with mother nature.

In her allegorical journey she also visits the Underworld as another Persephone. An ancient mound at Olympia, damp and chthonic abode of the dead, becomes the background. In this metaphysical theater scene, photographed by Aggelos Katsikas, she raises her hands in supplication and supreme communion with the unseen gods, a gesture repeated in her work like a fragment of a sacred code.

Fire, Prometheus` gift to mortals, and water, the beginning of all things, play a primary role, explicit or implied. And they appear again as primary elements — and agents of annihilation — in Manthos Zambitoglou`s photographs.

Xanthou wraps herself in a huge black cloth as a grieving Demeter in search of her Daughter. Creating negative space with her cape, she is a witch, a priestess or a goddess in a frenzied dance, and she alchemically transforms her image: now a bird, then an enigmatic animal, now a woman.

These actions take place in burnt abandoned buildings in Agria and Potistika after last year`s deadly floods. In the most recent images, the surroundings are made up of floating materials, traces of the disastrous natural disaster.

The artist physically occupies the captured landscape, choreographing herself in a symbolic act of healing environmental wounds. It metaphorically transforms darkness into light and destruction into rebirth. Freed from established social conventions and gender biases, she highlights the wild, primordial element and constant transformations of female existence in a work underlined by overt eco-feminist pursuits.

The staged images are allegories for femininity as manna — earth, the flow of time, decay, death, rebirth, the constant universal mutation of matter. Her art sounds the alarm for the future of the planet, projecting the vision of a new, hopeful beginning.

Bia Papadopoulou
Art historian, exhibition curator

Photo descriptions:

1. Female Principle, Pelion, 2021 photo by Natasha Kotsambasi
2. Female Principle, Potistika-Pelion, 2023, photo by Manthos Zambitoglou
3. Female Principle, Pelion, 2021, photo by Natasha Kotsambasi
4. Female Principle, Tatoi-Attica I, 2021,photo by Natasha Kotsambasi
5. Female Principle, Ancient Mound at Olympia, photo by Aggelos Katsikas
6. Female Principle, Agria Pelion I, 2023, photo by Manthos Zambitoglou
7. Female Principle, Tatoi-Attica II, 2021, photo by Natasha Kotsambasi
8. Female Principle, Tatoi-Attica, III, 2021 photo by Natasha Kotsambasi
9. Female Principle, Pelion, 2021 photo by Natasha Kotsambasi
10. Female Principle, Pelion, 2021, photo by Natasha Kotsambasi
11. Female Principle, Agria Pelion II, 2023, photo by Manthos Zambitoglou