Erika Winstone is part of a two person show in Athens.
FokiaNou Art Space, “Host”, John Bicknell and Erika Winstone
Duration: 26 October – 18 November 2023
Opening: Thursday 26 September 2023, 19.00
Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 17.00 – 20.00
FokiaNou Art Space, Fokianou 24, 7th floor, Pagrati, Athens
Metro: Evangelismos.
FokiaNou Art Space is pleased to present a two-person collaborative show with Athens-based artist John Bicknell and London-based artist Erika Winstone, who first met as MA students at the Slade School University College London in 1981 and have been close friends since. Host began as a self-initiated residency hosted by artist John Bicknell in Kypseli, Athens and Folegandros in May 2023, which for artist Erika Winstone was a wonderful research opportunity in both ancient and present day Greek culture and to reflect with Bicknell on their individual journeys as artists from their early work at Slade to the present. The project will be continued in Winstone’s studio in London, working from film and ideas captured in Greece and developing interrelationships between drawing, painting and film. Within the year Winstone will in turn host Bicknell in her studio at Kingsgate Workshops, London, culminating with two, two-person shows in Athens and London.
The artists have discovered common ideas and materials which reflect and question each other’s work in watercolour, drawing, glass, photography and film. Through discussion and working in each other’s studio, the often fragile and emotional processes of working are affected by the other artist in the spirit of generosity and exchange, enriching the work and giving it further reach.
John Bicknell’s paintings use figuration and abstraction, drawing on wide ranging sources in film, theatre, the history of painting and landscape. His work in Host consists of three groups of
works on paper: Folegandros watercolours 2023; Ghost flowers and land and work 2020-23; and Citizens Drawing installation 2022-23.The citizens are drawings from photographs of people in
the city of Athens and in history. The collaged pencil drawings on rice paper are fragile, illusive traces of human presence, each contributing to stories within stories, a human narrative field. Since living and working in Athens, he has exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions, and worked with film directors, artists and writers. www.johnbicknell.net
Erika Winstone presents an installation that layers her new film ‘Hover,’ silverpoint drawings on found glass and canvas, and watercolours on wooden panels. The artist filmed Easter preparations, processions and celebrations while staying in Bicknell’s family home on Folegandros. This research enriched her interest in creating fragmented narratives, as seen in her previous works La Duree (2017-19) and London Project (2019-22), which foreground her interest in performance, human relationships and the value of community. Winstone works with time, change and the shifting sense of absence. She uses gesture. However, in contrast to traditional gestural abstraction, her gestures are attempts to capture the words, gestures and communication of others.Winstone is a member of The London Group and was a founder member of [NAME], a collaboration of four female artists. She has worked consistently for 27 years with her daughter who is a performer. She has exhibited nationally and internationally. www.erikawinstone.net
FokiaNou Art Space is an artist-run project space in the intimacy of a small apartment in an old building in the center of Athens. The space encourages collaborative creative efforts between Greek and foreign artists, thereby promoting and supporting the local art community. The space hosts exhibitions, workshops and projects under the direction of two artists, Mary Cox and Panagiotis Voulgaris.