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VASSO GAVAISSE

20.04.2016 - 11.06.2016

Exhibition view at AD Gallery - photo: design360

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AD Gallery presents Vasso Gavaisse’s solo show.

Vasso Gavaisse’s geometric reliefs draw their origin from the Platonic solids, which she shapes and connects by cutting, removing or folding the paper’s surface she works with. From the paper’s flat surface and the abstract and rigorous perfection of the geometric shapes, depth and movement finally emerge.

This game of levels and depth is enhanced by the use of a metallic film which she applies on the paper. Thus, she incorporates light as a fully-fledged material, and works on games of shadow and reflection, giving a true materiality to the forms that she traces, which acquire their own impulse depending on the lighting and the viewing angle.

Gavaisse’s art language is not a narrative one. As Klee noted already at a very young age: “If from all the elements [that make up a painting or architectural work] I try to draw out the pure synthesis, their rational side is for me more obvious than the creative urge and imagination from which they came from.” It is this structural dimension of the work of art and of the universe that Gavaisse seeks to capture by associating her regular polygons according to a predetermined logic and a highly detailed plan.

Her work, however, does not lean towards pure conceptualism. Keeping in mind the principles of logic and geometric structure, Gavaisse lets herself be driven by the senses, matter and light that impose their own rhythms and adjustments. She does not implement a predetermined plan as a mere formality. The work takes shape by taking into account the obstacles and requirements imposed by the material, the light and the composition’s center of gravity. She certainly follows predetermined webs, but she leaves free space to a form of natural structure and movement.

Being very rational, her works simultaneously address the senses causing an almost mystical feeling, similar to that caused by the observation of perfect forms and analogies in nature, which are often attributed to the implementation of a divine plan. This spirituality is enhanced by the use of surfaces with metallic shine, reminiscent of the use of gold in Byzantine art, a symbol of an absolute space bathed in divine light.
Her work could perhaps relate in terms of technique to the popular tradition, embroidery and knitted creations, the female identity in the domestic area. One might seek for relations of her work with the “mystical” burlaps of Danil and the religious spirituality of Nikos Alexiou. However, what distinguishes Gavaisse’s work is the use of repetitive basic geometric forms that “build” a final image, which oscillates between two and three dimensions. An image built just like the matter particles are building the entire natural world, visible and invisible.


Exhibition duration: April 20 – June 11, 2016
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