The artist hosting program Thermia Project presents the contemporary art exhibition entitled “Traces on Soil” in the Municipal Council room of the town hall at Country of Kythnosfrom June 29 to July 7, curated by Odette Kouzou.

The artists of the program for 2024 are Despina Charitonidis, Konstantinos Mouhtaridis and Lydia Delikouras.

According to the organizers, the Thermia Project implemented for the third year in a row the program of hosting artists in Kythnos or otherwise “Thermia” which is the traditional name of the island and derives from the hot thermal springs located in the settlement of Loutra in the north-eastern part of the island . Every summer a group exhibition of contemporary art is held, with the aim of presenting the works created during the hosting of the artists, as well as bringing the inhabitants and visitors of the island into contact with contemporary art in their place.

The contemporary art exhibition entitled “Traces on Soil” seeks to explore the fragility of ecosystems starting from the human footprint and variability of the landscape, as well as the interaction between natural and artificial materials.

Visual artists are invited to follow the traces dictated to them by the environment of the island itself, exploring the relationships and effects resulting from the presence of man and his derivatives in the natural landscape, even through his absence from it.

Caves, paths, scattered archaeological and industrial ruins, but even the underwater landscape, emerge as fields of interest and are reinterpreted through the works of the exhibition, provoking questions about memory, the relationship of man with the environment, the human impact on the natural landscape , disposal and consumption in modern society.

The work of Despina Charitonidis turns towards a trend of stripping the natural and primary elements found on construction sites in the urban landscape. Her work focuses on reshaping and transmuting these materials through a process of experimenting with their properties. The results reveal a series of sculptural gestures that holistically re-examine man’s environmental intervention, observing the evolution of processes linked to a past close to nature, but within the frenetic modern rhythms. Starting from the porous surface of the now dead coral reefs, Charitonidis explores the underwater landscape of the island, unfolding narratives of the transformation brought about by aggressive construction even in the oceans.

Konstantinos Mouhtaridis captures in his works the feeling of the landscape in an abstract way, with particular sensitivity and meticulousness. Initially he observes and isolates part of the landscape, which in the second year works on paper, rendering the sensations, images, colors, different temperatures and smells of the landscapes from which he draws inspiration. Characteristic of his images are the repeated subtle strokes of watercolor and alternating color palettes, which invite the viewer to approach and observe each work carefully to reveal the details of his figurative writing. The works function as metonymic images of nature versus representations of the landscape. Thus, the observation of nature and landscape are transformed into sensory recalls, while organic forms and color relationships are reorganized to create lucid color compositions.

Lydia Delikoura constructs environments that consist both of natural elements and fragments of material culture, such as antiquities, objects of daily use and garbage, as well as of motifs and symbols, creating a collage on top of the painting. Her point of interest is the multiple cultural and historical aspects that appear on the island, the coexistence of archaeological, Byzantine and modern fragments, while at the same time she explores mirroring textures, objects that “imitate” each other, through transparent qualities that exist in shadows and in threads of light. These elements constitute for her materialities and gestures to compose “new environments” on the canvas, unfolding different aspects of time and place in her work.

For more information you can visit the thermiaproject.com website and the Instagram account