Employing power tools to draw, Antoniou’s process is physically demanding. Claiming co-authorship with her tools, she engages with them in a high speed choreography of synthesis. Her subtracting process allows forms to emerge at the surface of the steel sheet, referencing an ontology of fullness; in which the perceptible emerges from the imperceptible. Her drawings propose a world of possibilities with each glistening moment capturing a glitching experience of the present.
Antoniou’s research takes the metaphysical as a starting point and weaves these narratives away from identifiable subjects, but rather a dynamic interplay of forces, transformations, tensions and tranquil states. Her narratives take the essence of the Baroque style, proposing an aesthetic of ‘texture’, where matter becomes subject matter; expressing the invisible elements acting upon it.
Reflecting on the profound influence of screens within her contemporary perception of space and time, she focuses on their ability to simulate versions of reality beyond the spectrum of human perception through scale, distance or speed. As her sculptures continuously regenerate images under the play of light, they become speculative screens for an unfolding parallel reality, whose profile she is gradually shaping.
Elli Antoniou (b. 1995 Birmingham. Lives and works in Athens, Greece) has had solo exhibitions at Cob Gallery, London, UK and Saigon, Athens, Greece. Antoniou has had work curated in group exhibitions at Night Cafe Gallery, London, UK; Split Gallery, London, UK; Tabula Rasa Gallery, London, UK; Bertson Bhattacharjee Gallery, London, UK; Hellenic Residence, London, UK; FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France and Mécènes du sud, Montpellier, France. Residencies include Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy (2023) and Roman Road Studios Programme, London, UK (2023). Antoniou has been awarded a Scholarship for Postgraduate Studies by NEON Organisation for Culture and Development, Greece and the ARTWORKS 2022-23 Fellowship by Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Greece.
EDUCATION
2025 Amphitopia (solo), Micro Gallery, Athens, organised by Maria Manti Art Advisory, curated by Charles Moore (forthcoming)
2024 passages through the caustics, Cob Gallery, London, UK
2025 Abandoned Cartographies and Other Odd Hours, CAN Gallery, Athens, curated by Dinos Chatzirafailidis (forthcoming)
2025 In Tandem, Cob Gallery, London, UK (forthcoming)
2024 Involution, Supported by the Ministry of Culture Greece, Wildreeds, Athens, Greece
2024 Veils of Impermanence, Supported by Arts Council England, Gossamer Fog, London, UK
2024 Morphic Fields, Night Cafe Gallery, London, UK
2023 *pinch* to zoom, with Beatrice Vorster, Generation & Display, London, UK
2025 Miart, Cassina Projects, Giovanni De Sanctis (forthcoming)