Chrysanne Stathacos
The Re-Turn
May 10, 2023–June 10, 2023Anonymous Gallery, 136 Baxter Street, New York
Chrysanne Stathacos was a fixture of the downtown New York scene for over thirty years before shemoved her studio to Athens, Greece and Toronto, Canada. As a painter who has strayed into performance, installation, and various hybrid forms, she has often been overlooked while her male colleagues have been celebrated. anonymous gallery is proud to present The Re-Turn, a survey of painting by the septuagenarian artist.
Chrysanne Stathacos’ painting spans multiple continents and contexts—from the east village to the Greek islands to a Tibetan nunnery—and incorporates universal motifs and materials such as roses, hair, and ivy.Her paintings grapple with collective loss, body politics and metaphysical spirituality, often erupting into performance, installation, and interactive environment.
For The Re-Turn, Stathacos revisits her old neighborhood of the lower east side with new and old paintings using roses: Roses evoke timelessness, passion and courage. The roses—sometimes mixed with hair and condoms—are coated in etching ink and arranged on linen before being sent through a printing press. The impression is a shadow or fossil, a record of presence. The rose’s natural colors oxidize with time to create a fragile palimpsest.
Stathacos draws inspiration from personal experience. During the HIV/AIDS pandemic, she lost many close friends. In response she created 1-900-Mirror Mirror, an interactive installation using early video-phone technology of the time. The work was first presented in 1993 at Andrea Rosen Gallery, at the height of the pandemic.
The same devotion and ritual inform her floral Mandala installations and performances, the first made for the Dalai Lama in 2006 at the University of Buffalo. Similar works are presented here, notably Rose Wall, 1995-2023, Roseblood Scroll, 2015 – 2022, and three monumental paintings, never before exhibited. Combined, The Re-Turn is a transcendental examination of the past, present, and future.
Chrysanne Stathacos (b. 1951) is a multidisciplinary artist of Greek, American and Canadian origin. Her work has encompassed printmaking, textile, painting, installation and conceptual art. Stathacos is heavily involved with and influenced by feminism, Greek Mythology, eastern spirituality and Tibetan Buddhism, all of which inform her current artistic practice. She has participated in countless international exhibitions in various media, but she is most known for her unique combination of performance and installation. Stathacos’ recent solo exhibitions include Cooking with Roses, The Buffalo Institute of Art (2022), Pythia,The Breeder, Athens (2017) and Gold Rush, Cooper Cole, Toronto, (2018), and Do I Still Yearn for My Virginity?, Situations, New York (2018). Stathacos presented The Three Dakini Mirrors (of the body-speech and mind) in the 13th Gwangju Biennial Minds Rising Spirits Tuning curated by Defne Ayas and Natasha Ginwala (2021); she also presented Five Mirrors of the World (2019) at The Sculpture Park, Madhavendra Palace, Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur. Recent exhibitions include Every Moment Counts: AIDS and its Feelings at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Norway, curated by Ana María Bresciani and Tommaso Speretta (2022). Her Rose Mirror Mandala series was originally created to be presented to the Dalai Lama in 2006 for his visit at the University of Buffalo, and was later included by AA Bronson in many exhibitions including The Temptation of AA Bronson, Kunstinstituut Melly (Formerly known as Witte de With) for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2013). She is a founding Director of Dongyu Gatsal Ling Initiatives, a non-profit organization that works to help Tibetan Buddhist women practitioners in the Himalayas, inspired by the life work of Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. She is represented by The Breeder, Athens. Stathacos’ works are included in public and private collections including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. The Chrysanne Stathacos fonds is located in the Archives and Library, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Stathacos currently lives and works between Athens, Greece and Toronto, Canada.
