Ex-voto Art Exhibition “Imaginary Seascapes”
ArtLab presents a selection of works by Christina Anid, a visual artist and ex-voto sculptor.
OPENING NIGHT: August 3, 2025 at 20:30
The duration of the exhibition will be: August 1 – August 17
Operating hours: Mon-Sun 10:00 -14:00 / 18:00 – 22:00
The exhibition Imaginary seascapes brings together various artworks and turn them into one the same way, these ex-voto art works, created from dozens of used orthodox embossed metal plaques, unite separate prayers turning them into one communal invocation. Composed of dozens of prayers, the works hold a lot of hope. So personal yet universal, they tell human stories while evoking a magical realm surrounded by sea, phantasmagorical travels above the clouds.
ABOUT THE EX-VOTO ARTWORKS
Ex-voto suscepto – “from the vow made” – are devotional objects, offerings placed in temples or altars in thanks for a blessing or to accompany a wish, a desire longing to be fulfilled. From time immemorial, in all cultures, all religions, men have always believed in the power of intention and have practiced offerings as a means to communicate with their Gods. Since the dawn of time, people have asked for the same things : protection, love, abundance. They pray for the soul of their departed, for the future of their children. Rich or poor. Of any confession. They long for freedom, for harmony.
Around 2012, Anid came across used ex-voto embossed metal plaques on the stall of an antique shop in Athens. Upon looking at them, she saw dates, names, messages handwritten on them and was deeply moved by the loving energy held in these objects. In order to keep them united in a common prayer, she bought them all. Until, two years later, after the passing of her father and in the midst of the refugee crisis, she was inspired to create a human size angel, bringing together around a universal theme destinies which were never meant to intersect.
In this series of works adorned with mystery, the artist binds her story with our time’s story as her energy blends with that of the hundreds of wish-holders whose plates she has reclaimed. Anid links the personal and the universal and exorcises fear by telling stories of love, belonging, wandering and wondering. In these labors of love, spontaneous, visceral yet laborious, echoes the sound of uprooting, of transformation as well as the call for freedom.
EXHIBITIONS
- In 2013, Fadi Mogabgab gallery hosts her first solo show in Beirut, Lady Creatures.
- In Spring 2022, she had a big scale retrospective exhibition at the French embassy in Athens: Echoes of shadow and light.
- She participated in the exhibition Reality check II: Inner Sanctum at Dafni psychiatric hospital.
- In spring of 2023, she took part in The Butterfly effect, at the “Butterfly” thread factory in Athens.
- In august 2023, she had a solo show in Patmos at the Stavrakas mansion: Hope in the Oneness.
- In January 2024, she participated in the group show “Amadeus” at the Blender Gallery in Athens.
- Since 2023, she is present at gallery Taxidi in Tinos.
Link to the catalogue of Anid’s retrospective exhibition at the French Embassy in Greece – 06/2022: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/48d34468d7.html
Instagram: @christina anid
Speaker
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Christina AnidLearn more →Christina Anid is a French artist of Lebanese, Greek and Hungarian origins. She lives and works in Athens.
The walls of her atelier as well as her whole house have something of a pop « cabinet of curiosities» where hundreds of rare images meet singular objects.The self-taught artist is active on the international art scene since 2010. She has created a diverse panel of works including collages, wall sculptures made from votive metal plaques and “memory tables” made from the sentimental books one would not read but has a hard time letting go of.
Her many collages and compositions explore the themes of transmission, memory, belonging… She weaves in her work the mapping of a quest for freedom where poetry meets pain while interrogating what it is to be a woman. In her obsessive accumulations, she shows a determination which has something of a trance.Her proficiency in different mediums and use of various materials is the reflection of her multicultural origins. Christina Anid grew up in Paris where she studied French literature at the Sorbonne. She then travelled the world and practiced environmental communication, journalism, photography and jewelry design before settling in Greece where she became a mother. “Like in a domino game, sometimes a litany, one thing lead to another until I landed in Greece, where I replanted my roots. The feet in Europe and the heart in the Middle East, Greece allowed me to balance my aspirations” she says.
