Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery is happy to present Maria Efstathiou's solo show 'Sequences & Series'. The exhibition opens on Thursday, November 16 and will be on display till the 21st of January 2024
According to the widely referenced educational theory, Bloom’s Taxonomy, during the learning process learners follow a linear path of factual remembering understanding, applying, analysing and evaluating, before they are ready to create an outcome, which comes as part of the last learning stage and takes up the least amount of time to learn. One can say that Efstathiou’s practice is an extreme take on this learning journey, applying observation and taxonomy as both a process and an outcome. For whoever knows the artist herself, she also practises this on a daily basis with other artists’ work. I have often observed her while she is observing other objects, materials, processes and details – this includes her keeping a steady pace, standing up to find a peculiar-sized pair of scissors, returning to measure proportions, pausing to pick up half a piece of something. Bundles of ideas and rubbles of messy exercises become staged and observed as if they’re being examined for the first time, and then broken down, identified, dissected, and thematically organised. As the light changes, dots of dust on the table start to become visible. Textures appear and connections are pinpointed. Observation reveals itself to those who wait. Then there is invented, or rather invested, value. Still, no conclusions are drawn. More sequences, incremental changes, palettes, gradients and variations are gathered. Should these go on the floor, wall, table, notebook, post-it note or in phone notes? Is taxonomy the end? Or should it be the beginning of the process? Should we keep returning to it as a default start? What madness can embark on acknowledging and recording it all? Could a light diffraction on a thousand year old rock contain it all? Which one of them all? Where does it all stop?
Or rather, when did it all begin? Is this a prank? A repeated prank?
In ‘Sequences & Series’ Eftathiou presents a series of taxonomical works flipping the gallery space with her thinking, exposing her prosses further and blending the boundaties between observation, archiving and finished artwork.’
Maria Georgoula