From Theano Giannezi’s curatorial statement:
Athina Pappa’s new body of work, Angel Energy, constitutes a natural continuation of her previous exhibition Anima (Chalkos Gallery, Thessaloniki 2024), functioning as a transition from organic matter to the immaterial, and from the body to the spirit.
While in Anima the artist explored the relationship between nature and feminine energy through figurative elements and narrative symbols, in Angel Energy the image is liberated, forms dissolve, and the gaze is invited to move freely among fields of color, textures, and gradations of light. The visual language becomes more abstract, yet at the same time more structured around recurring patterns.
Collage elements, an integral part of her practice, often cut from magazines and prints, are reassembled into organic forms reminiscent of crystals, droplets, or floating fragments of light. Their vertical placement on the painted surface creates a sense of continuous descent or ascent, like a visual waterfall suspended between sky and earth.
The process is both spontaneous and disciplined. The painted base emerges through free expression, and then, methodically and with precision, the artist places the collage elements, seeking an inner balance between chaos and order, instinct and control. The result is an image that seems to hover at a threshold: neither entirely abstract nor figurative, but an intermediate state where matter transforms into energy and is expressed as pure vibration, rhythm and movement.
Angel Energy does not propose a depiction of the angelic, but rather an experience of this energy through the act of viewing. Through this new body of work, Athina Pappa seeks a kind of painting that breathes, an image that does not represent, but pulses, transforms, and emerges. In this way, her paintings act as fields of vibration, where the viewer feels and becomes immersed in an experience of suspension.
Angel energy / 2026 / ArtZone42 gallery / Athens / Greece
