On Thursday, January 22, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., the solo exhibition of Alkistis Mavrokefalou, curated by Galini Lazani, will open at the Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center.

The exhibition will run until March 7, 2026.

In her second solo exhibition at the Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center, Alkistis Mavrokefalou continues to raise questions about human existence, with works that at first glance draw their inspiration from nature. Whatever she chooses to study and transform into artistic work has its roots in her personal experiences, in which nature and its creatures intertwine with human existence.

As a result, her new work once again features elements and landscapes from the nature in which she grew up: sea urchins, rocks, seas. However, the dense writing in her drawings on millimeter paper is now evolving into compositions with larger gaps, which lend the works a sense of calm.

Alkistis Mavrokefalou, held, pen on millimeter paper, 30×42 cm, 2025

All of the above natural elements exist in tangible form in the micro-environments she “builds” inside plexiglass, but with the addition of a new, man-made material. These are handmade lace pieces made by her using kopaneli, a traditional technique that is tending to disappear, whose motifs are inspired by the Greek landscape. In other words, the same applies to the tradition of kopaneli as to Mavrokefalou’s works: the symmetry of nature is transformed into a personal, contemporary human creation. In her case, of course, the threads of kopaneli are intertwined with fragments she collects from the natural world: cicada shells, mandarin peels, sea urchin spines.

It is worth mentioning that in some of her designs, one can see a handmade QR code, also structured from microscopic elements. The digital footprint of these codes forms a short narrative when “read” through a mobile phone, another work, the starting point of which is a story she heard in her childhood: “If you want to make a wish for someone you love and have it come true, whisper it to a sea urchin. That way, the wish remains well guarded and protects the person for whom it was made.”

All these thoughts that push the artist to create her works may seem to concern our relationship with the natural environment, but aren’t they ultimately an extension of our position among humans? Even her choice to focus on sea urchins in her new works has to do with the way humans assign specific characteristics and roles to creatures of nature, based solely on their external features and their own experiences. However, these characteristics do not define their true identity. Mavrokefalou sees beyond the outer shell and seeks to propose a more holistic and empathetic approach to everything and everyone around us.