Vicky Christou | Material Memories
Vicky Christou | Material Memories
April 3 - 28, 2025
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening reception: Saturday, April 5th, 2 - 4 pm
The past becomes the present in Vicky Christou's newest solo exhibition Material Memories, an exploration of emotion, memory, and self-awareness tied to the materiality of everyday objects and environments. The Melbourne-born, Vancouver-based artist uses her renowned multi-dimensional style of painting to create order, a connection with breath, time and a recollection of landscape in this intimate collection.
Artist Statement:
“In my latest exhibition Material Memories, I have further explored references to textiles and craft within the context of an open grid painting system. I have contemplated how objects and environments possess the capability to evoke memories and influence my present-day awareness. I am curious and inspired by how these recollective associations influence my perceptive and emotional states of being as my past becomes part of my present.
In paintings, such as Shadow and Flame I used the traditional horizontal format to reference an abstracted form of a remembered landscape. I incorporate an expanded visual vocabulary of painting methods, all constructed by use of extruded impasto lines layered to create concentric formations. Throughout this new body of work, diagonal and rhythmic lines combined with palettes of chromatic tonal shifts act as signifiers to natural elements alluding to water, earth, sky, sun, moon, wind, day and night.
These elemental variables pose as poetic states of observation, subtle reflections of momentary perceptions, meditative and peaceful.
My intent is to create order, a connection with breath, time and a recollection of landscape. The crafted materiality of my painting’s surfaces connects them to a personal narrative and lineage to traditional textiles. My interest in the politics of gendered histories, combining craft with intuitive abstract expressions informs my artistic process.
Material Memories furthers my creative pursuit of guiding principles and expressions of themes and mark making.” – Vicky Christou
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Vicky Christou (b. 1966) immigrated to Canada with her family in 1969. In 1991, Christou graduated from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design after specializing in painting throughout her studies. The artist explored visual themes of infinity and domestic crafts through the Post-Modern form of the grid. A grid of acrylic impasto covers the surface of each work, offering varying glimpses into the layers of colour of the composition beneath. Through this practice, the artist has created a unique multi-dimensional style of painting that has become synonymous with her studio.
Christou's work explores the illusionary play between colour, proportion, and pattern. Christou constructs a dimensional surface by meticulously applying layers of lines of acrylic paint by hand. The accumulated paint lines create an optical play between colour, form and space. Christou’s highly textured surfaces defy traditional distinctions between painting, sculpture and craft.
The artist lives and works in East Vancouver.