CYPHER presents the first solo exhibition of Eleni Tomadaki, titled “Aaaaa,aa”, curated by Ioanna Gerakidi. Rooted in the primitive and instinctive yet tender gesture of the stroke, Tomadaki’s new body of work oscillates between chaos and hesitation, destruction and creation. Through her recent patterns—once figurative, currently broken, faded or willfully fainted—the artist questions the boundaries of form and existence. By occupying a space which lingers over the real and the speculative, the haptic and the dreamy, the exhibition “Aaaaa,aa” interprets breath as an alternative vocabulary and order as something ever-changing, inviting the audience to explore their own meanings, spiralities, and freedoms. The opening will take place on Friday, January 17, at 7pm.

Artist note*

Each stroke signifies decisions that reply to questions. Questions concerning the medium, the limits of the medium, the limits of the self. A painting striving to set its outlines and be-come in the context of contemporary painting. A body that does the same to be-come in the context of contemporary society. I see painting as a process of becoming: A chaos, a nothing, is slowly getting baptized by the marks of the paint on the surface, and whilst passing through this threshold, it decides to which laws and up to what extent it will submit; And how much of it will remain. The painting surface becomes a battlefield in between chaos and order, the animal and the human, the body and the mind. A body that strives to set its outlines and become. A fighting body. How much freedom to give to a body to express itself without letting it erase itself completely? When I paint, there’s a point in which I let my hands free – and why not to? Why not get out of the lines, break the borders? What if I mess it all up, what if I make the figures, the shapes, the forms lose everything that signifies them? What if I don’t submit to order, to the expectation of making something skillful, aesthetically appealing or technically complicated? When I give my hands the freedom they are asking for, they destroy; Nothing; that’s what’s left. And then more nothing. To become a subject one has to submit (Butler). To question the context which defines one, is to question oneself (Kristeva). I obey. My free hands have to occasionally stop. In front of a line, a shape, a figure. They follow. Some lines have not to be surpassed in order for the painting to exist, but how many of them to follow? The way that I treat my surface is informing the way that I position myself in society, personally and politically. I am seeking to find a balance between order and chaos, love and anger. I fail. Again and again. Silence is louder than the loudest scream, a tutor once told me. Let it be. My body resists. My body is angry, my body wants to fight, to dance, to get pleased. It is not about communicating a story but a state. All I aim for is a pause. A breath.

Eleni Tomadaki 12/2024



Photos by Stathis Mamalakis

Curatorial Text

A few weeks back, in a note she wrote as a response to her practice or praxes on and nearby painting, Eleni Tomadaki says that: “Each stroke signifies decisions which reply to questions. Questions concerning the medium, the limits of the medium, the limits of the self.” I read it and I remember I was left thinking: Why a stroke? Who’s historically named this often rough and abrupt and unmeasured gesture a stroke? How can a movement almost instinctive or primitive be seen or uttered as something as tender and motherly and loving?

Yet, in this new body of work bringing together a series of paintings and other works, words and sounds, Tomadaki enacts the essence of the “stroke”. There’s something in her recent patterns, once figurative, currently broken, faded or willfully fainted, sharpened and darkened and paused, that was born through and by touch.

And through this exact touch, its pains or pleasures or both, she navigates us through her questions on limit. Her touch traces the idea or the connotations of that feared and fearless line in multiple and vexed ways. Her works speaks of hesitation and chaos, they grasp the gasp, follow the chasm, intensify when shielded, show and shine when safe. The limits of her medium extend following the rhythms of her self. The bodily gesture turns into a promise, a fractured yet performative engagement with a series of subversions and other schemes seemingly contradictory.

In this new body of work presented in her solo show “Aaaaa,aa”, Tomadaki creates a world, an omniverse where she can compulsively destroy what was once delimited or bounded, only to let it grow. And within such a process, she resists time and exceeds space; she fails the image as a whole, obeys to the impositions of her ruins. She gets lost and stubbornly occupies this space in between the real and the speculative, the haptic and the dreamy.

Vernaculars and screams and whispers, urban and other landscapes, diaristic elements, spirits, animals and woods and wounds, birds and their voices in high-pitched volumes, they all co-exist in her work. Nothing’s too frivolous to be excluded, nothing’s too precious to be praised either. Relics and dirty wipes, pinks and blacks, spiderwebs or the spectrum of light, the tensions between them all, non-defined and peripheral, form what will be brought to the center of attention.

In “Aaaaa,aa” breaths are intrinsic parts of an alternative vocabulary, supporting mechanisms are vessels for resisting the body’s restraints and images escape the structure of an internal or external depiction, allowing us audiences to become with our meanings, spiralities, freedoms. And over this constantly alternating or fighting states between the tamed and the disruptive, things find another order, a limitless, unending point where the lyrical exist only through the breaks of cacophony.

Ioanna Gerakidi

“Aaaaa,aa”, Eleni Tomadaki’s solo show at CYPHER, curated by Ioanna Gerakidi, 17.01 – 28.02.2025

Opening hours:

Thu-Fri 18:00-21:00, Sat-Sun 12:00-16:00, and by appointment

CYPHER – Lefkados 1, Kypseli, Athens