Who is who (2025). Digital collage on canvas, aerated concrete, steel, organdy, thread. Dimensions variable.

”…or Medusa, staring out from the shield of Athina, used as an apotropaic* totem to destroy the bodies of giants and vanquish enemies? (*Use evil to fight evil) Inspired by an actual statue of Athina from the Acropolis museum, Xenia Papadopoulou presents this Athina as a male construction, a stripped-back form of metal, bearing a cloth cloak with gossamer Medusa snakes. A sandstone block proffers a dissapearing footprint in the sand – the artist’s own.

So who is the ruin and what is ruined here? Time and the sea dissapear the imprint of the artist’s body; one female deity uses another’s power to attack and harm. Woman against woman, reading against reading. By deconstructing meaning, are we too freezing the living layer of a narrative? By making art, are we freezing raw creativity and transforming it into solid stone? Medusa’s monumental face stares from the wall nearby, mesmerizing.

There is conflict here, there is tension. Ruins (shipwrecks, old stone statues, ancient myths) reveal and provoke, conceal and evoke still more questions” (extract from the exhibition’s catalogue).

Sara Rosenthal, curator

The works were exhibited at the Argo Annex (Athens, July 2025) as part of the artist residency: She, Ruins, Everything

*Photograph of the Gigantomachy pediment/Old Athena temple. Archaic period, Antenor or Endoios (?), Archaic Acropolis Gallery, Acropolis museum. Source: https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%91%CE%B8%CE%B7%CE%BD%CE%AC_%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9_%CE%93%CE%AF%CE%B3%CE%B1%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%82_%28%CE%9C%CE%BF%CF%85%CF%83%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BF_%CE%91%CE%BA%CF%81%CF%8C%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%B7%CF%82_%CE%B1%CF%81._631%29

Related works: The colour catcher project