Sevina Tzanou

Tzanou's paintings build upon her keen engagement with the construction and representation of the femme and the hyper-femme within painting and its historical language. Tzanou’s large tableaux offer a window into the worlds of burlesque and drag performance, a subculture that Tzanou forms part of - as a performer herself. Tzanou combines scenes of nightlife where glamour teeters with the anarchic, alongside scenes of more introspective moments depicting individual or historical performers ‘behind thecurtain’. In doing so, Tzanou conjures dynamic and complicated depictions of women; touching on ideas of performance that exist on and off ‘stage’. Tzanou speaks to the mythology and expectations surrounding the female form, oscillating between attraction and repulsion. Tzanou's vibrant scenes recalls the debauchery of life in all its decadence, humour and tragedy. Her exuberant paintings emerge from the shadows of abstraction that burst into a cacophony of bodies, limbs and faces that symbiotically exude decadence, desire and disaster. Tzanou studied in Düsseldorf under KatharinaGrosse, Eberhard Havekost and Yesim Akdeniz. Her most recent solo and group exhibitions include: Unapologetic WomXn, Palazzo Bembo, Venice ( Forthcoming); The great Disastress, Kendall Koppe, Glasgow (2023); FinalFantasy, Temnikova & Kasela Gallery, Talinn (2023); Spikes that bite, Margot Samel, New York (2023); Parties I am not Invited to, Robert Grunenberg, Berlin (2022). She has performed at Kunstmuseum Bonn,Bonn and Ka iArt Center, Talinn (Both 2023). She will be the focus of a solo presentation at LISTE, Basel in June 2024.