My work is concerned with object/context relationships and explores themes related to class, taste, identity and display.
I work with photography and sculpture to construct miniature maquette’s that I use to photograph found objects - in order to create lucid comments surrounding the objects in question and how these are re-presented within specific contexts.
With the distortion of scale and the use of three dimensional and two dimensional space, my work questions the viewers relationship and our visual certainties to raise issues around the role of viewing and receiving art today.
In addition to this my work is concerned with creating a cultural space from which to operate in-between social and cultural norms, and samples a range of varied elements in order to create my own sense of geographic and cultural place. As a product of globalization born in London to Cypriot parents and immigrating to the United States, the spaces that I create act as metaphors to a decentralized notion of the places that we identify as home.
The work I have submitted represents the autobiographical spaces that I have created in contrast to the opulent and fantastical spaces that I also make.
It is a model of my Mothers kitchen in one of the places that we lived in, growing up in England. Somewhat comical with the use of the 60’s themed Formica kitchen illustrates a particular nostalgia that could be relatable to the trappings of suburbia and contemporary life. Whilst the eggs being such a powerful and overtly used symbol within art history and its many ramifications, in this case they are intimate and personally symbolic to an exploration of my own culturural history, and indigenous habitat, growing up in an immigrant family in a foreign country. In an ever globalized world many of us can relate to the idea of displacement and disorientation. I wanted to use the eggs as signifiers that are popular and universal, they are familiar, but also create the sense of alienation. I want to create a work that is both humorous and inviting, yet profound and poignant also.
Petros Chrisostomou was born in London, 1981. He lives and works in London and New York. He was a participant on The Studios Program at MASS MoCA, MA. Other residencies include ISCP International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, as well as being one of the recipients of The Red Mansion Art Prize where he worked for a concentrated period of time in Beijing.
Recent exhibitions include ‘Notes from Nowhere’ The Gutstein Gallery, SCAD Museum, Savannah, GA (2019) ‘La Collection BIC’ Centquatre, Paris (2017) ‘Miscellaneous and Blended-Art from NYC’ Museo De Arte De Sinaloa (2014) ‘Nirvana-Strange Forms of Pleasure’ MUDAC, Lausanne (2014) Vertigo, Galerie Xippas, Geneva (2013) ‘Ficciones’ International Biennial of Photography, Uruguay (2011) ‘Plastic Lemons’ Spring Projects, London (2011) ‘Fresh Faced and Wild Eyed’ The Photographers Gallery, London (2009) ‘In Present Tense-Young Greek Artists’ EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (2008) 3rd Beijing International Art Biennial, Beijing (2008).