Nikomachi Karakostanoglou is a Greek artist with a profound ability to reconcile life’s metaphysical impressions with the palpable components of the natural world. Her drawings and sculptures are informed by a deep understanding of the base principles of space, following a career in the interior design industry that spanned over 15 years. During that time, a move to a foreign country left Nikomachi feeling intensely adrift, ultimately culminating in the shedding of a fear that inhibits a vast majority of creatives and the conviction to pursue art as a vocation. 

Following studies in Business Administration at Athens University of Economics and Business, Public Art at the Chelsea School of Art (B.A), and Fine Art: Sculpture at the Wimbledon School of Art (B.A Hons), Nikomachi has mastered a multi-faceted capacity to articulate the powerfully resonant connections that reside at life’s core and take on definition when we commune with nature.

Following an immersive methodology that begins deep in the woodlands surrounding her home in Nymfaio, Greece, and evolves in her studio, Nikomachi transfers the essence of her experiences to paper before relinquishing to the ancient properties of white marble.Nikomachi’s drawings are imbued with a purity and intentional imperfection that reflects the elemental natural world at its most lucid.

Nikomachi’s large scale works on paper are accomplished using a mix of paint materials which yield to the existential qualities she has experienced during her time in nature — both in the native forests of her homeland and in the Atacama Desert, Chile during a residency in 2019. Crucial to Nikomachi’s process is an alliance with water which allows for the subtle manipulation of paint to build layers of transparency and weighted moments akin to the momentum and balance of life.

A Narrative on Nature is a collection of striking works in verdant greens and translucent aquamarines. A symbiotic liquidity and gentle effervescence permeates drawings which adopt a spiritualistic beauty reminiscent of shards of sunlight penetrating a leafy canopy or deep pool. An ethereal ambience captures the sensorial impact of the elements while organic shapes resonate with the ancient cyclical rhythms of nature. 

Embedded in Nikomachi’s drawings and sculptures is a quality that reaches to the human heart and restores hope in the unshakable continuum of the world to which we are all connected. 

Written by Tiffany Jade.

NIKOMACHI KARAKOSTANOGLOU | A NARRATIVE ON NATURE

In situ # 1:  Intimately Close 10 by Nikomachi Karakostanoglou, Transparent Ink on 300 GR Cotton Paper, Original, 110 x 150 cm. On view at @stvincents - an exclusive collaboration between Otomys Contemporary and St Vincent’s, Antwerp. In situ # 2: Intimately Close 13 by Nikomachi Karakostanoglou, Transparent Ink on 300 GR Cotton Paper, Original, 110 x 150 cm. Housed at Villa Mandra by K-Studio - as photographed by Brechenmacher and Baumann.