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Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
What vision could see
Maria Trillidou’s painterly worlds in ‘Pink Mink’ hold carnivorous plants, chthonic beings and tentacular creatures. Her masterful technique renders unexpected materialities and textures – like the furry coating of pink mink flowers, or the almost translucent, ready-to-sting spikes of cacti.
Drawing on contemporary culture as a collective body fascinated with the making of fearsome things cute, and often revealing the dark underside of ‘the beautiful’, her compositions mix the careful application of line and shape with the wet and rupture-like application of colour.
The artist’s worlds hover between “storytelling and fact telling; it is the patterning of possible worlds and possible times, material-semiotic worlds, gone, here, and yet to come”¹. Within them, the dynamics of representation are simultaneously practiced and defied.
In her most recent works, different mouths appear on unexpected, hybrid bodies. A tetraptych suggestively titled Hellmouth, depicts the open mouth of a big mammal that is attached to tangled plants, becoming one with them. Replete with a large tongue and the size of its teeth’s surface, the opening reminds of an active yet deserted space.
In medieval iconography, the open mouths of enormous monsters represent the often elaborately decorated gates of hell: a spatialisation of expectation, the suspended moment of entry into the unknown. This unknown is understood as the devouring inside of an other, a space of meaningless decomposition often referred to as ‘the belly of the beast’. When imagining this ‘here’ that decomposes, the feeling conjured up is that of a monstrous sublime that we cannot fully comprehend. In Trillidou’s work, these mouths are more like desiring machines, ready to interact with something, producing unexpected combinations and new bodies.
In between drawing and painting, the works provide open grounds for exploring what our eyes could see if vision stepped beyond the recognition of humanistic concerns -including finitude- on nature. Drawing is after all a desiring process, a way to move through time and space, a tool with which to produce new ways of engaging with the reality of all things that remain unknown to us.
Evagoras Vanezis
Art Theorist
1 Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene.
Artist Statement:
Unlike a naturalist who is observing in order to describe,
define and categorise,
I omit, modify and distort.
This leaves the unigender, plant-like organisms that occupy my works, undefined, ambiguous and formally unclassified.
Maria Trillidou
February 2023
Born 1968, Nicosia. Lives and works in Nicosia, Cyprus.
Through her practice, Maria Trillidou touches on contemporary posthuman concerns that review the current anthropocentric values and the philosophical consequences of concepts such as ‘human’ ‘human nature’ ‘immune system’ ‘identity’. Within this frame, she focuses on mutualism and coexistence among human and non-human lifeforms, considering the human organism as a part of an expansive network extending in and out of the body the understanding of which is constantly evolving
She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, USA and a Master’s diploma in experimental art practice from Basle School of Art and Design in Basel, Switzerland and a Master’s diploma in Psychodynamic counseling from Westbrook University, USA.
SOLO SHOWS
2023:
- Pink Mink, The O Gallery, Larnaca, Cyprus
2021:
- Mutual Affections, Nasty cat annex, Nicosia, Cyprus
2019:
- Under, Over and Otherworldly, curated by Evagoria Dapola, Nasty cat annex, Nicosia, Cyprus
2017:
- Current Terrains, Phytorio, Nicosia, Cyprus
2014:
- Communion, Argo gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus
2011:
- Terra Incognita, Diatopos Center of Contemporary Art, Nicosia, Cyprus
2008:
- Anamnesis, Diatopos Center of Contemporary Art, Nicosia, Cyprus
2006:
- Code Change, Diatopos Center of Contemporary Art, Nicosia, Cyprus
2000:
- Medusa, Gallery Lobby, Nicosia, Cyprus
1998:
- Metamorphosis, The Monagri Foundation – Center of Contemporary Art, Limassol, Cyprus
1996:
- Cocoons, Gloria Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus
GROUP SHOWS
2022:
- Winter Group Exhibition, The O Gallery, Larnaca, Cyprus
2021:
- Summer Group Exhibition, The O Gallery, Larnaca, Cyprus
- Limitless Limits, Larnaca Biennale, Larnaca, Cyprus
2018:
- Interpreting Blue, Kypriaki gonia gallery, Larnaca, Cyprus
- The Sea Within, Limassol Municipal Arts Center, Curated by Catherine Louis Nikita, Limassol, Cyprus
2017:
- Art-Thessaloniki, Papatzikou art gallery, Thessaloniki, Greece
2016:
- Follow Me, Papatzikou art gallery, Veria, Greece
- Art-Athina, Papatzikou art gallery, Athens, Greece
2015:
- UNBOUND, curated by Maria Trillidou, The Collection Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus
2014:
- Cyprus Contemporary Artists / Εν-Τύποις Publications, Nicosia, Cyprus
2013:
- Re-Turn, Aigaia School of Art, Nicosia, Cyprus
2012:
- Red, curated by Savvas Christodoulides, Argo Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus
2011:
- Chartographies of the Unknown, 50Plin1 Gallery, Limassol, Cyprus
- Perfect F II Curated by Savas Christodoulides, Argo Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus
- Art-Athena 2011 with Diatopos Center of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece
2010:
- Love and Hate, Diatopos Center of Contemporary Art, Nicosia, Cyprus
2009:
- Saorge in Situ, Saorge, France
- Perfect F, Curated by Savas Christodoulides, Argo Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus
2008:
- Blind Date, Curated by Margarita Paraskeuaidou, Maria Eustathiou&Ilkem Tunar, Bicommunal Exhibition, Nicosia
2006:
- The Playmaker, Diatopos Center of Contemporary Art
2005:
- Artcard, Sharjah Art Museum, United Arab Emirates
- Unclaimed Luggage, Curated by Artrageous Group, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain
ARTIST EXHIBITION DATES
11 March 01 April 23
The 
Gallery
Gallery
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Fleshia
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
75 x 56 cm
2022
€ 1000
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Fleshia Limited Edition Print
Hand embellished limited edition print on 310g watercolour paper
Edition of 50 ( each piece is unique )
75 x 56 cm
2023
€ 240
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Toadlips
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
75 x 56 cm
2022
€ 1000
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Carnivores
75 x 57 cm
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
2021
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Echeveria
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
75 x 56 cm
2022
€ 1000
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Monster-cell
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
100 x 75 cm
2022
€ 1200
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Tentacular
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
57 x 36 cm
2022
€ 400
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Hellmouth / Part 1 of 4
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
75 x 50 cm
Part 1 of 4
2023
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Hellmouth / Part 2 of 4
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
75 x 50 cm
Part 2 of 4
2023
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Hellmouth / Part 3 of 4
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
75 x 50 cm
Part 3 of 4
2023
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Hellmouth / Part 4 of 4
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
75 x 50 cm
Part 4 of 4
2023
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Hellmouth / Tetraptych
Watercolour.
,acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
150 x 100 cm
Tetraptych
2023
€ 3000
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Nightshades
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
55 x 36 cm
2020
€ 400
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Anthopod
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
20 x 17 cm
2022
€ 200
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Pink Mink
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
75 x 56 cm
2023
€ 1000
Maria Trillidou / PINK MINK
Stoma
Watercolour, acrylic, metallic pigments and pencil on 100% aquarelle paper
55 x 37 cm
2012
€ 400