ARC ONE Gallery presents Amathous, a highly anticipated exhibition from leading contemporary artist NIKE SAVVAS.
Widely celebrated for its dynamic transformations of colour, light, movement and opticality, Nike Savvas’ work transcends the material conventions of painting to embrace a broader zone of physical, perceptual and experiential immersion. Conceptually grounded, Savvas’ art practice is personally and politically charged.
In March of this year Savvas traveled to the ancient site of Amathous in Cyprus where the landscape - sun, sea, blue sky, and vivid yellow flowering Lapsana (gathered by her paternal grandparents) became visceral constants on her journey. Savvas’ research took her along the coast from Polis Chrysochous where she visited museums and archaeological sites documenting traces of the early first people of Cyprus. At Amathous earlier generations of indigenous Cypriots had maintained not only their culture but also the now extinct Eteocypriot language. This historical record, pared with Savvas’ personal genealogy embodies “a history that spans time and place, the ancient to the recent past. It speaks to family, past and present, and future generations”. The ancient ruins of Amathous are testament to this living history and left Savvas overwhelmed with its “poignancy and significance“.
The major new works Amathous (for Chloe), Lapsana, Diamond Dusk and Diamond Light, represent a personal and revelatory journey for Savvas transforming her experience of landscape and place. With a practice often referencing Op art and hard-edge abstraction, Savvas conflates colour theory with complex mathematical algorithms to further activate the work. The azure sky and reflective rhythms in shifting ocean light invoke a zone of wonder and phenomenon, from DNA sequencing to the ephemeral ghosts of her forebears.
Nike Savvas is a senior Australian artist based in Sydney. Trained as a painter, she works across scale and materials completing numerous large-scale installations for the Toi Art Te Papa, Wellington; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Auckland Art Gallery; Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Camden Arts Centre, London; Artspace, Sydney; IMA, Brisbane; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Leeds Art Gallery, UK; Southbank Centre, London, UK.
Nike Savvas’ work is held in many public collections including Art Gallery of New South Wales, Auckland Art Gallery; Toi Art Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Cyprus Ministry of Culture Collection (National Collection); Tate Library Collection; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; British Museum, London; Chelsea College of Art and Design, London; The Royal College of Art, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; UTS Gallery Art Collection, Sydney; RMIT University Art Collection, Melbourne; Deakin University Museum, Melbourne; The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.
In 2012 Savvas had a major international survey show ‘Liberty and Anarchy’ at Leeds Art Gallery, UK. In 2005 she was included in the historic exhibition Visual Music, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles representing a major development in the history of visual music, and was the recipient of a coveted Jury Prize (Gold Medal) 11th Triennale of India, Dehli, The Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, the A.C.T. Creative Arts Fellowship, and an Australia Council Fellowship.
19 October - 26 November 2022
