Project Space: Anastasia Mina, Theta

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Theta is a commission of new prints and drawings by London-based Cypriot artist, Anastasia Mina. This body of work continues Mina’s investigation into the historical and political implications of marginalised narratives; a practice informed by the politicised region of the artist’s country of birth. Working in drawing and printmaking, she re-edits and obscures found photographic images in an effort to distance the image from the event it represents. Through her treatment of this material, Mina highlights the subjectivities at play within the photographic document and considers possibilities for new readings of its visual content.

For her Project Space commission, she has digitally reprinted a scaled-up image from her own family archive and has worked into the photographic detail with graphite, ink and gold leaf; integrating glyphic forms found on the reverse of the original photo. Mina’s interest in this stems from its physical quality: a mark from past generations preserved for those in the future. Within her work the trace reappears as a motif; magnified, embellished, and layered into abstraction.

Showing alongside this piece is a selection of smaller works on sandpaper. Within these digital prints the ink is absorbed into the grit, creating fragile, fading imprints on a surface that usually smooths over textures; challenging us to think of the material’s capacity to host traces of change.

Anastasia Mina (b. 1986, Cyprus) is an artist who lives and works in London. She graduated from Athens School of Fine Arts in 2010 with a Diploma in Painting and completed an MA in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art, London in 2014. She received the A.G Leventis Foundation Educational Grant (2012, 2013), the Royal College of Art Fund Support (2012), and the Fine Art Bursaries Award RCA (2014). She was selected for the VHDG residency in Leeuwarden (EUcapital 2018), the NeoArtists Residency programme in collaboration with Bolton University (2017), the Florence Trust Residency Programme (2016-17), and the Young Artist’s Residency in Berlin (2016). Selected exhibitions include: How to fall with grace, K-Gold Temporary Gallery, Lesvos Island (2018); Impulses of inalienability, Eins Gallery, Limassol (2018); A million love songs, Koraï Project Space, Nicosia (2018); Weaving Europe, Pafos17 EU Capital of Culture (2017); Mustafa Hulusi Posters, Hoxton Square, London (2017); Ecstatic Textures, Modus Operandi 17, Gkaraz, Nicosia (2017); and Mediterranea 18 Young Artists Biennale, Tirana and Durres (2017). Mina is also a co-founder of mIprojects, an artist’s platform that facilitates collaborative work.

Anastasia Mina, Untitled viii, 2018. Detail. Image courtesy the artist.