In September 2022, Androulla Michael and Minnie Weisz co-curated HoME, a multimedia exhibition that brought together nine international artists working under the creative and social-cultural theme of displacement to compliment the tenth year anniversary of the Athens Democracy Forum, in association with The New York Times, held at the Zappeion, Athens, Greece.
The Athens Democracy Forum was attended by international business leaders, academics, policy makers and experts including: the European Commission President, Ursula Von Der Leyen; the 8th United Nations Secretary General and Chair, Ban Ki-Moon; and Her Excellency the President of the Hellenic Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, amongst others.
Below includes photos of the event and examples of the works by the participating artists.
EXHIBITION SYNOPSIS
WHERE THE TREE MEETS THE CROSS brings the work of two artists, Androulla Michael and Iuliana Gavril together in their shared reverence for those most unnoticed - unseen - instances of everyday life. Yet, their capturing in drawing and photography exposes profound, enduring symbols: the cross and the tree.
Androulla Michael’s crosses pass into and out of form through a wall or tree, in the cracks of pavements, in the overlaying of clouds on the infinite blue, in the caress of window mullion and muntin by draperies, in the markings of roads and sky, in the nudge of ordinary objects given to banal surfaces.
Once noted, in the mastery of timing, the crosses celebrate light as form-giving, shadow as surreptitious texture and space as life-affirming. Part of knowing the beauty of the world, part of re-finding the salvific and affirmative self in a tumultuous time-space, Androulla Michael’s evanescent crosses will inevitably and ultimately point to the biblical trees: the tree of life, the tree of knowledge, and the tree as the Christian imagery for the cross.
In this specific reference, the ephemeral sighting of crosses receives their immutability. Iuliana Gavril’s drawing of trees (Arborium Series) gives Androulla Michael’s Cross Seriessufficient but not necessarily contextual materiality, anchoring the simple intersecting of lines, often perpendicularly, in the immutable beauty of the natural world. The trees, at once weightless and resplendent, annul the disruptive feature of crosses, repositing the beauty of the world. Only when cross-sighting is viewed in proximity of trees, its life-affirming and altogether humbling attribute is magnified.
Below includes installation shots of the show.
