Kalliopi Lemos’ composition titled Bag of Aspirations.

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Mila Askarova, Azerbaijan native and Founder of Gazelli Art House, London and Baku, has announced a new exhibition of the works of Greek artist Kalliopi Lemos titled Tales of a Journey (Oct. 22 – Nov. 21). In response to the popularity of Lemos’ Tools of Endearment series which featured four monumental sculptures exhibited across London this month in partnership with Frieze Sculpture and Mayfair Art Week, the art house has curated a selection of her works that explore the intimate universe of the artist.

Tales of a Journey features a total of seven early sculpture works, as well as an array of paintings, collage works and films dating back to the beginning of Lemos’ career in the 1990s. Dating from the 90s, in paintings such as Intensive Activity and After War and Peace, classical images allude to the organised chaos explored by Gustave Doré, demonstrating the artist’s ability to navigate between thematics and her early commitment with the struggles of human existence.

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Tales encompasses more than 20 years of artistic production. The responsive series of stainless-steel sculptures from her first solo show In Balance at Gazelli Art House (2016) highlight this day-to-day battle, tensions between male and female, aggressive and passive factors, action and inaction.

Women’s issues are approached with sensitivity, and works from 2018 open an important contemporary discourse about the role of femininity - both historically and in today’s world.  Lemos is a Greek-born, London-based sculptor, painter and installation artist. She studied painting and printing at Byam Shaw School of Art, University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins, where she also pursued post-graduate studies.

  Mila Askarova founder of Gazelli Art House. 

For fifteen years, she studied the art of Ikebana, Japanese flower arrangement, steeped in the philosophy of developing a closeness with nature. Over the past decade, her paintings, sculpture and installations have explored the narrative of existential journeys, displacement and the politics of forced migration. During the last decade, she has exhibited extensively in various international venues. Many of her works, especially the exhibition in Ioakamion School, reflect Lemos’ persistent interest in the dignity and fate of destitute and power-stricken multitudes, victims of immeasurable neo-capitalism and irresponsibility of political powers. This is correspondingly one of the most projected concerns of the UN Commission.

The reasons for the social and political crisis in patriarchal and male-controlled societies and their solutions have been explored by UN Commission on the Status of Women in Mexico (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995) conferences. Critical areas of concern such as Women and Poverty, Violence against Women, Women and Armed Conflict, Human Rights of Women, Women and the Media, Women and the Environment and The Girl-child, still prevailing in very severe forms, were identified in the Beijing Platform for Action. Lemos’ work decisively intends to open a visual sphere of knowledge, perception and awareness of this reality.

Gazelli Art House was established as a creative platform and commercial gallery with a broad and dynamic programme for an international audience through public projects and exhibition spaces in London and Baku.

Having hosted conceptually interlinked off-site exhibitions across London since 2010, Askarova opened a permanent two-storey space on Dover Street in 2012; the Azerbaijan location, Gazelli Art House Baku, re-opened in 2017 with a new design. With an ambitious programme showcasing both Azeri and international artists, as well as established and newer talents, Gazelli Art House has become a platform championing non-traditional genres such as virtual reality and exploring themes reflecting rapidly changing political, cultural and societal landscapes, while building a diverse programme of artists working with different genres and mediums, including Stanley Casselman (US), Derek Boshier (UK), Giovanni Ozzola (Italy), Kalliopi Lemos (Greece), Aziz + Cucher (US/Peru), Niyaz Najafov (Azeri) and Recycle Group (Russia), among others.

In addition, Gazelli Art House’s art education schedule includes the Window Project for art school graduates (2012) and Gazell.io (2015), an online residency for artists working in virtual reality. Art school partnerships have also been held with schools, including Central Saint Martins and Royal College of Art, where open calls are announced with these schools.The gallery also publishes catalogues and artist books and collaborates with museums worldwide.

Askarova was born and raised in Azerbaijan before settling in London in 2002. She graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science where she studied International Relations BSc. Having worked in the Client Development department at Sotheby’s, she pursued further studies at Central Saint Martins and Christie’s Education, gaining theoretical insights into Collecting Contemporary Art, Independent Curating and Art Business.

Gazelli Art House has grown to support a wide range of international artists and in 2017, the redesigned gallery space in Baku reopened with an ambitious annual programme, showcasing both local and international artists including to date, El Anatsui, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Franz Ackermann and Richard Wilson. Representing artists like Aziz+Cucher, Derek Boshier, Stanley Casselman, Francesco Jodice, Recycle Group and Saad Qureshi among others, the gallery has built a varied programme with artists working in sculpture, photography, painting, video, performance and virtual reality. On an annual basis, curated shows titled ‘Enter Through the Headset’ are held to feature a select few from the previous residents in the physical space of the gallery. The gallery keeps an archive of all previously shown works within the residency and from group shows.