Niki KOKKINOS

Périples

                                                    The proliferation of folds: a new grammatical lay-out

Niki Kokkinos presents woks based a practice of reassembling and reorganizing space-time at ODRADEK’s.

The artist has been using paper or polyester materials to multiply them by folding and twisting for a long time. Niki Kokkinos challenges space-time, she manipulates surfaces by creating them. They are reversed inside-out, opposed to the logic of their flat supporting structures. There are no more centers, the artist tackles the paper rigidity, the edges are folded inward, into the piece which becomes visible on both sides. Each pleat harbors a promising potential. As the paper is not delimited, the artist needs to leave traces of its treatment and manipulation that resulted in markings. These receive and record events. It means preserving marks of different time sequences. In each finished booklet the artist tells maze-like stories whose geography is variable.

Through this drastic folding treatment of a map showing her ancestors Greek islands, Niki Kokkinos leaves the known realm, just a Ulysses did. Like him, she departs from straight itineraries. Sideways offer us surprising possibilities. Because of the inside-out process our outlook on the world is transformed. New vistas free our imagination from its rational frame.

From one single and same background, the assembled and disassembled supporting structure changes whilst remaining consistent. It obeys the artist’s will, who like Mallarme and Borges, takes chances by multiplying perspectives to infinity.

Simone Schuiten