Overview
Pilar Corrias is pleased to present Banistiri, the first solo exhibition by Greek artist Sofia Mitsola. The exhibition features new paintings of female nudes and a miniature portrait which is visible to the viewer through a hole behind the gallery walls.
Exploring the notion of voyeurism, Mitsola’s figures invite viewers to look at their bare sexual bodies whilst simultaneously confronting the viewer with their colossal size. The figures are full of life, their bodies warm, their limbs twisting and curling. They do not shy away from the viewer who is caught in the act of looking and stealing an intimate moment.
Mitsola’s figures are taken from ancient Egyptian and Greek sculptures of goddesses that stay young for eternity and mythological creatures that seduce men and devour them. The women in Banistiri are playful and seductive, their soft, youthful faces belying their capacity for an intense ferocity.
The title of the exhibition, Banistiri, comes from the ancient greek word βαλανεīον, meaning bath, and became a slang word for voyeurism used to describe the act of staring at women who were bathing in the sea from afar.
Sofia Mitsola (b. 1992 Thessaloniki, Greece) currently lives and works in London. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL in 2018. Recent solo exhibitions include: Jerwood Solo Presentations 2019, Jerwood Space, London (2019). Her recent group exhibitions include: dreamtigers, 125 Charing Cross, London (2019). Mitsola was awarded the Tiffany & Co x Outset Studiomakers Prize (2018) and the British Institution Student Award by the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2018).
