Elli Antoniou explores the multifaceted notion of ‘the virtual’ and the boundaries of sensory experience. She has devised a hybrid technique combining gestural drawing with the use of abrasive tools to subtly alter the surface of steel panels, transforming their reflective properties. Animated by their surrounding light, her metallic drawings propose scaleless fluid cosmoi in perpetual motion.
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, U.K.) grew up in Athens and is currently based in London. She holds an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art and a BA in Fine Art & History of Art from Goldsmiths University of London. 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. Solo exhibitions include passages through the caustics, Cob, London, UK (2024) and _overlapping moments of a slightly present Saigon, Athens, Greece (2021). Group exhibitions include Morphic Fields, Night Cafe Gallery, London, UK (2024); a brief interval - spills within, Split Gallery, London, UK (2024); things fall apart; the centre cannot hold, Tabula Rasa Gallery, London, UK (2024); Al Dente: A Feast for the Senses, Bertson Bhattacharjee Gallery, London, UK (2023); Doomed Companions, Unsubstantial Shades, Hellenic Residence, London, UK (2023); Monts Analogues, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France (2021); Aube immédiate, vents tièdes, Mécènes du sud, Montpellier, France (2021).
Residencies include Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy (2023) and Roman Road Studios Programme, London, UK (2023).
2024 passages through the caustics, Cob Gallery, London, UK
2024 Morphic Fields, Night Cafe Gallery, London, UK
2024 - a brief interval - spills within, The Split Gallery, London, UK
2023 *pinch* to zoom, with Beatrice Vorster, Generation & Display, London, UK
2021 _overlapping moments of a slightly present, Saigon, Athens, Greece