Chris Bors - Works on Paper Press Release

ARCHIMEDE STAFFOLINI GALLERY
Arch. Makarios III 52, 1075 Nicosia, Cyprus
Tel.22374429, Fax. 22374435
Hours: Tues - Friday 11-1 & 5-8 PM

WORKS ON PAPER
31 May - 27 June, 2003

Reception: Saturday, May 31, 8-10 PM

Archimede Staffolini Gallery is pleased to present "Works on Paper" featuring Charles Avery,
Chris Bors, Jim Isermann and Konstantin Kakanias. The exhibition selection brings together
diverse works that share a visual and sensual vibrancy employing the medium of paper.

Charles Avery's spindly figures look like mythic characters that are not publicly accessible and
seem to exist independent of each other in a private universe in compositions that are developed
along the way. Avery's work is predominantly about the fictions we weave in our head, images
that according to Tom Norton "are parasitic, powered by the people that host them in their heads."
Charles Avery (b. 1973, Isle of Mull, Scotland) has had a number of exhibitions in New York, London,
Los Angeles and Italy, while currently he's creating a work for the Venice Biennale, for the Padiglione
di Venezia.

Like doodles from an adolescent's high school notebook, Chris Bors's drawings rely on imagery
appropriated from pop culture, which takes on a different meaning when enlarged. Taken out of
context and recontextualised the images acquire a new meaning, more sinister and ambiguous.
As the artist notes: "A dysfunctional and schizophrenic identity remains throughout the work,
which can be traced to a steady childhood diet of television, video games and the hyperbolic
acting of professional wrestling." Chris Bors (b. 1971, Ithaca, New York) has had two solo shows
in New York and has been included in group exhibitions in the States and Europe.

Konstantin Kakanias's delicate collages seem to regress into childhood with a witty sense of
humour reminiscing early school experiences and friends. Kakanias' work is characterised by a
humorous penchant interweaving art and fashion in fictitious narratives. His book "Mrs Tependris:
The contemporary years - The adventures of an Art collector" was published in 2002 with an
introduction by Hamish Bowles, Vogue's European editor at large. Konstantin Kakanias (b.1961,
Athens) graduated from the Studio Bercot in Paris. He worked as an illustrator of couture shows
and designing fabric patterns for Christian Lacroix and Yves Saint Laurent, before heading to
the U.S.A where he currently lives and works as an artist. He has widely exhibited in the States
and Europe, most recently at Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York and Jennifer Flay Gallery in Paris.

Jim Isermann's work explores the fine line between abstraction and design, at once referencing
minimal art and 60's design and the problematic distinction between "high" and "low" art. His work
involves amongst others weaving, braiding and stained glass, reintroducing minimalist forms with
geometric patterns that are also interpreted in drawings with coloured crayons. Michael Duncan, in
response to the artist's work, wrote that: "Far from any postmodern critique of the 'failed ideals' of
the modernist past, his project espoused a renewed, historically conscious idealism, one that champions the ornamentations of the past as symbols of cultural identity and of our insistent desire to embellish the world." Jim Isermann (b.1955, Wisconsin, USA) has had numerous solo exhibitions in galleries and museums, including the Camden Arts Centre, London, the UCLA Museum, USA and the travelling exhibition "Fifteen: Jim Isermann Survey."