×

Niki Kanagini

Introduction Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Section 4 Section 5 Section 6 Landscape Movement Column Untitled Manuscript for the Potential Viewer or Reader Domestic Scene (1) Domestic Scene (2) Ode to things Domestic Scene (3) Address Book Manuscripts Aphrodite Manuscripts The Walls Have Their Say Journey. Works and Days Attire Cleanliness – Purification – Fruit Washed Well, Try Some Trilogy – Female Angels

Niki Kanagini

Aphrodite

Investigations into female identity remained one of the key through-lines of Niki Kanagini’s artistic research. From the mid-1980s onwards, she would introduce depictions of women’s bodies into her work as they have been rendered in historical and mythological forms, and in representations of ancient love and fertility goddesses. These forms are rooted in figurine types dating to paleolithic and neolithic times, such as the Venus of Laussel, with the totemic figures stressing gender characteristics and fertility via form, belts, and other decorative elements. They function as symbolic schemata for the body, gender, and desire. Kanagini’s painting idiom reformulates personal and collective biographies, connecting gendered experience with longstanding cultural narratives.