OUR Mary Galani-Critiqueakamachi creator, embroider on Athena and to aegina, night Day. He not only does this, but at the same time writes, reads, teaches, studies, non-stop. But embroidery, as an art form, made it unique in the wide world of fine and manual art, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that the talent of our national embroiderer is recognized in her works. He is a renaissance man. Her tapestries are currently in the cafe of the National Archaeological Museum in Patision and will remain there until June 4th. In this exhibition entitled “Myths – Fairy Tales – Epimythia”, curated by Iris Kritikou, all the accumulated knowledge and experience, all the accumulated experience of a lifetime of self-knowledge and study, is expressed in elegant products made of silk and cotton thread or thick wool. This world is self-sufficient and at the same time a changeable world, penetrating into the cavities of a common heritage.

Tapestries (as well as pillows and embroideries for clothing and accessories) by Maria Galani-Kritiku have their origins not only in the art of composition and execution, but also in the swimming pool. Motifs, symbols, representations, codes and fragments of a deep cavity of memory and self-consciousness tear off the works themselves and turn them into banners of euphoric affirmation. The works themselves are embroidery of a coherent perception of the world. Maria Galani-Critique, studied French literature at the Sorbonne, worked as a journalist for several years at Le Figaro and then at Vim, Aeginitissa and Athenaia, open-minded and eclectic, intimately familiar with European and Greek culture, book writer “Aegina: faces – places – memories” (2010), is ready to give us her new song called “My Embroidered Aegina”. An interlocutor with the entire spiritual base of the island and a personal friend of all the great artists who were associated with Aegina, Maria Galani-Kritikou is a rare person.

Need to create

The works that we now see in her exhibition are the result of an inexhaustible need to create. But also the need to communicate with all the suggestive, but omnipresent forces of the spirit, with the demons of popular and urban art. Her embroidered tongue invents improvised scenes, as Iris tells Kritik, who so aptly sums up the themes of the works: “Mythical animals and Homeric heroes, fighters and brave girls, youths and fairies, mermaids and Alexander the Great, Rotokrits and Aretuses, pirates and holy sailors, litanies icons and crossed epitaphs, stunning Resurrections, blossoming almond trees and bright Aegina pistachios form dense narrative embroidered plains that captivate and delight the mind and eye of the viewer.

In the cafe of the National Archaeological Museum, whose personality is captured by Emilia Kougia (meticulously managing the exhibition program of the space), the visitor will see this very fruitful conversation of folk motifs and timeless Greek themes in tapestries with a timeless perception of color and life that originates precisely in this place. The colors of Maria Galani-Critic, the joy of life, the glory of Greece, love for the present lead us to what we always strive for.