Rika Pana: Pros to Phos

The edition includes texts specially written for this volume by Elisavet Plessa, who spent a year researching the archive of Rika Panayiotou and studying her work in close collaboration with her. The volume is complemented by around 100 works of hers (paintings on canvas and paper), as well as rich archival material (photographs, correspondence, publications, and reviews from the Greek and foreign press). As the editor of the edition, Elisavet Plessa points out, Rika Panayiotou's painting is deeply human-centered. Her work was shaped by the civil war, the occupation, and the dictatorship of the colonels, as well as the serious health problems she faced. The pioneering character and expressiveness of her technique, with the minimal materials she uses, fit both the serious issues she denounces and the straightforwardness with which she handles them. Protest against the lack of freedom, denunciation of the erosion of culture, the search for identity, despair, and the hope of humanity are the main axes of her painting.