Christina Mitrentse investigates the esoteric qualities of myth, interpretation and cultural construction through processes of painting, handcrafted sculpture, installation and conceptual appropriation. Her practice oscillates between that of curator, collector and storyteller in an endeavor to designate the peculiarity of this relational space of aesthetics.
Ignoring traditional hierarchies of display, Mitrentse creates a freedom to suggest new narratives and poetic ensembles of personal institutions such as schools, libraries, churches, academies and museums. Using the tropes of quasi-science, telluric monuments and celestial exploration, her work offers an ocularcentric pattern of discovering worlds within worlds and meaning in allegory.
Through sustained research of cosmological phenomena, explicit for the Celestial Contrakt, she has created an emergent sculptural ‘Constellation’ which suggests a humorous, visual transmission from the banal to the monumental. Mitrentses’ use of magnitude relates to her fascination with the spatial model and scale of the megacosm depicted in the Still Life- ‘The book of Universe’. Navigating within these works, we are related to a conception in which the ‘primary’ form of the universe is defined by the significations of natural occurrences within everyday life.
Mitrentse is a Greek visual artist and art educator based in London East End since 2000. With an Onassis foundation fellowship, she holds an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design and a PGCE from University of Greenwich. Her artworks are included in both private and public collections in Europe and the United States. Selected shows include: Solo- Building My Library,NO:IDgallery ‘09, Brench/Absorb ,Oblong gallery 09, In/Flux HTAP, London 09, Brussels Art Fair ‘09 The Apartment Gallery Athens. Impromptu,Schwartz Gallery London ’09. Public Project Commission, Greenwich Foot Tunnel 08-09 London. The End of the Earth’NDSM- Amsterdam 08.‘Emerging Artists’,Griechishe Kultustiftung Berlin 06. The Secret School Solo show in a bomb shelter, London 05. An Outing, Contemporary Art from Beltsios Collection Athens 06. She also co-curates international shows in London and Greece, most noticeably ‘Who Cares About Greek Art?’ Athens 06, and ‘The Flat Pack’ Deptford London06.
