Despina Flessa

1. Silver Tongue Devil II is a sculptural exploration of materiality, language, and the human figure. Created through an experimental process using graphite and basic, almost raw materials, the piece reflects on the constructed nature of identity and communication. At its core is a photographic representation of a woman — a visual anchor that evokes both presence and absence. The figure, however, is not portrayed traditionally: she is fragmented, intervened, and recontextualized within a structure that plays with the boundaries between sculpture and image. A protruding “tongue” element, rendered with irony and force, challenges the viewer’s perception — confronting conventions of expression, gender, and representation. In Silver Tongue Devil II, the familiar becomes strange: the body is both revealed and concealed, and the materials, though simple, are arranged in a way that evokes tension and ambiguity. The result is a layered piece that speaks to the complex relationship between visuality, speech, and identity.

2. Created through a combination of inkjet print and graphite on paper, the piece reimagines the human figure as a surface for tension — between image and absence, body and abstraction. Flessa begins with a photographic base, yet intervenes in the image through dense graphite markings, scratching, and erasure. What remains is a layered surface where the original figure, possibly feminine, is barely visible — suggested more than shown. This tension between presence and disappearance opens space for multiple readings: intimacy and alienation, memory and materiality, softness and resistance. The artist’s minimalist approach highlights the physicality of the medium. The paper bends slightly under the weight of graphite; the surface carries traces of both gesture and restraint. In this work, the figure is not represented, but rather constructed through its partial erasure — a poetic gesture that questions what it means to be seen, to be portrayed, or even to exist within an image.

Despina Flessa (b. 1986, Athens) is a visual artist based in Athens. She has received a BFA from the Athens School of Fine Arts and an MFA from the M.E.T. Master of Fine Arts in Athens. In 2010 she attended Edinburgh College of Art with the support of the Greek State Scholarship Foundation. She has been awarded the ARTWORKS SNF Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship Program in 2018. She has presented solo exhibitions in galleries including pop/off/art gallery and Zoumboulakis Galleries, and has participated in international group exhibitions in galleries and art fairs including VIMA Art Fair Cyprus, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), HAUNT // frontviews e.V., Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, Art Athina, The Others Art Fair in Turin, CAN Gallery Athens, MOMus Experimental Center for the Arts, UNESCO at the Salle des Pas Perdus Paris, Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, Contemporary Greek Art Institute ISET. Since 2020 she has been an active member of the art collective Frontviews in Berlin.