Helen Kyrkilis is a Greek-Canadian artist who lives and works in Athens, Greece. She studied Painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts and obtained her MFA with honors in 2017.
The range of her work includes paintings, collages and sculptures. Frequently, various materials and objects are incorporated into her paintings threads, wood, textiles, embroidery, picture frames and more, thus broadening the conventional two dimensional bounds of painting.
The wild and impulsive gestural strokes seen on her paintings convey the inner source of her creativity. Her work is a result of a life time of influences, of personal and collective memories, all carrying an emotional value. She forces a reflection on not only memory and history, but what potential can be found in bringing the past into a new encounter with the present.
Through curiosity and constant experimentation, with influences from Arte Povera, Dada even Pop Art, Helen Kyrkilis examines what is beyond the given meaning of things. Using ludicrous or unorthodox materials that talk not only operatively but also artfully, she focuses on highlighting each other's relationships with humor and imagination.
The color symphony, the schematic fit or even the conversation of materials creates the visual stimulus and makes the project components interact, resulting in their conceptual and formal integration.
At the same time, the main topic of her works is the collecting. A choice conscious and yet unconscious, sometimes intuitively and sometimes synergistically. Readymade objects that change shape and identity according to their placement and as if they were pieces of a puzzle, create a visual riddle that seeks to be solved. It is a generous result of images and meanings summarized as “modern baroque”.
She has participated in several group exhibitions and in 2020 she had her first solo exhibition at Evripides Art Gallery and in 2023 the second.
Her works are found in the collection of Piraeus Bank and in private art collections in Greece and abroad.
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2023 Evripides Art Gallery “Collections of the Gaze” ( Curated By Elizabeth Plessa )
2020 Evripides Art Gallery “Surfacing the scenes within”
Group Exhibitions 2015 - 2023
2023 Collage Remix 2, FokiaNou Art Space, Athens (curated by Panagiotis Voulgaris and Mary Cox)
2023 100, Technopolis City of Athens (curated by Thetis Marianou)
2022 Art Thessaloniki / Gr Collectors
2022 Re-Imagine II, Municipal Gallery, Mykonos (curated by Gr Collectors)
2022 Inside the Myth, The Mill of Pappas, Larissa (curated by Francesco Piazza)
2022 Collage Remix, FokiaNou Art Space, Athens (curated by Panagiotis Voulgaris and Mary Cox)
2022 Re-Imagine, Imagine Visual Arts, Paiania (curated by Gr Collectors)
2021 The Shape of the Water, Herakleidon Museum, Athens (curated by Angelos Antonopoulos, Nikos Podias, Assimina Kaniari)
2021 With a Feeling of Hope...: 1922-2022, Evripides Art Gallery, Athens (curated by Louisa Karapidaki)
2021 Art Athina / Evripides Art Gallery
2021 Chronic Kidney Disease: A Silent Epidemic, “Nikos Kessanlis” Exhibition Hall, Athens School of Fine Arts
2021 Canone Doppio, Museo Riso – Museo regionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Palermo, Palermo (curated by Francesco Piazza)
2021 Canone Doppio, The Project Gallery, Athens (curated by Francesco Piazza)
2021 1821: Vision of a Revolution, War Museum, Athens (curated by Gr Collectors)
2021 «… the sound of a sweet voice…», Municipal Art Gallery of Corinth (curated by Iris Kritikou)
2020 Diachronies, Hellenic Cosmos Cultural Centre, Athens (curated by Iris Kritikou)
2019 Art Athina / Evripides Art Gallery
2019 Abstract Poetry, Tsichritzis Foundation for the Visual Arts, Kifissia (curated by Iris Kritikou)
2019 Rosa’s New Clothes, Ikastikos Kyklos DL, Athens
2018 The Start, Evripides Art Gallery, Athens
2018 Bibliophily, Ianos Art Gallery, Athens, (curated by Iris Kritikou)
2018 Young Artists Inspired by the Exodus from Missolonghi, Trikoupeio Cultural Centre, Missolonghi (curated by Maria Ferentinou)
2018 Diachronies, Diachronic Museum of Larissa (curated by Iris Kritikou)
2018 Άξιος εστί, Museum– Estate of Leo Tolstoy “Yasnaya Polyana”, Tula Oblast, Russia
2017 About Health, Diachronic Museum of Larissa (curated by Iris Kritikou)
2016 About Health, Archaeological Site of Epidaurus (curated by Iris Kritikou)
2015 Archive Art: Visual Situations – Installations, The Historical Archives of the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation (P.I.O.P.), Tavros