What constitutes the spirit of α place and how is the skin of the landscape shaped? In her new solo exhibition, titled Spiritus Loci, at Space52, Stella Christofi investigates the conceptual construction of the landscape through paintings and sculptures, using walking practices as the main "vehicle" for her work.

Opposing the hegemony of vision through the retina, the artist proposes a non-representational painting rooted in multisensory perception. During her wanderings in both urban and natural environments, she collects instantaneous images with her camera, focusing on materialities, forms, textures, and the composing elements of the sensible that are not perceived at a glance. 

Her works constitute an attempt to shape the porous “skin of the landscape,” a unified surface that functions as connective tissue between what the eye perceives and what is inscribed in the mind. At the same time, Christofi’s paper, stone-shaped sculptural landscapes function as signposts, lodestars that assist in our orientation. They also indirectly allude to the notion of temporal accumulation in the earth’s crust, which shapes the volumes and details of its surface.

In Christofi’s conceptual landscape painting, the non-places constitute small spatiotemporal and sensory passages between the witnessed event, which dissolves, and the spiritual contemplation that follows this experience. “The word “atopos,” which contains within it the word “topos” (place), both in Greek and in French (déplacé), describes the ineffable aspects of things or feelings that are rarely experienced—those that are extraordinary, original, and authentic in the strict sense. The images she collects during her walking journeys are transformed into parallel non-places and assemble a constellation of memories, desires, paths, destinies, and linguistic markers”, notes in the curatorial text, the curator of the exhibition, Vicky Tsirou.

In this context, the Latin neologism Spiritus Loci, a broad concept that can be translated into English as the spirit of a place, was chosen as the title of the exhibition, as it assembles all those factors which, though imperceptible, shape the identity of a place. It constitutes a compilation of properties based on the material substance and the atmosphere that an individual subjectively attributes to a place, and it is based on this experience that the characteristics making the place unique are formed.

A bilingual edition accompanies the exhibition, with contributions by Kostis Velonis and Vicky Tsirou. Alongside the Spiritus Loci exhibition, Space52 will present work by Stella Christofi at Art Athina (September 18-22) at the Zappeion Megaron, as part of the Home is Me exhibition.

Spiritus Loci exhibition is supported by the Department of Contemporary Culture and the Deputy Ministry of Culture, Republic of Cyprus.

More about Stella Christofi

Stella Christofi (Cyprus, 1988) is a visual artist based in Athens. She is a Phd candidate at the Department of Visual Arts of the Athens School of Fine Arts. She studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts with a scholarship from the Cyprus State Scholarship Foundation (IKY) and at Paris 8 University with a scholarship from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation (IKY). She continued her studies with a master's degree at the Department of Early Childhood Education and Care at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens with a scholarship from the Cyprus State Scholarship Foundation (IKY). She also holds a master's degree in "Visual Arts and Landscape: Approaches to Urban and Natural Space" from the Department of Visual and Applied Arts at the University of Western Macedonia. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Romania, Moldova, and Berlin, as well as in artist residency programmes and workshops in Cameroon, Greece, Lithuania, and Jordan. She has published articles and presented papers in international conferences in Greece, Malta, and Cyprus. Her works are held in private and public collections in Cyprus, Greece, and abroad. 

Information:
Opening: Saturday 13 September, 6-9 p.m.

Duration: 13.9.2025 - 4.10.2025