MEMORY AND IDENTITY
Cista Arts Galleries, London UK
According to John Locke (English philosopher and physician), a person's identity only reaches as far as their memory extends into the past. In other words, who one is critically depends upon what one remembers. Thus, as a person's memory begins to disappear, so does their identity. All artists with a different artistic approach reflected their individual and exceptional experience around the theme ‘Memory and Identity’.
The artists whose work features in this exhibition are: Agnieszka Kot, Alan J Ward, Alice Harley, Amanda Durig, Annie Trevorah, Aysha Choudhury, Ben Sheppee, Cameron Scott, Caren Keyser, Chrysanthe Maggidis, Claire Jackson, Cristina Mocan, Deborah Root, Emily Tull, Grant Lambie, Hafifa Ahmed, Helen Stone, Ian Bride, Irirna Sokolova, Jay Goldberg, Jude Lin, Kate Anderson, Mary Low, Mary Millner, Maryam Tavakoli, Matt Noir, Melusine Brosse, Michele Noble, Nabeel Alsamman, Natalia Millman, Natasha Voronchikhina, Paige Whitaker, Pip Woolf, Rachel Glen, Sally Spinks, Sara Townley, Sarah McAlister, Seitaro Yamazaki, Shani Eldar, Shuntao Li, Zoe Maxwell.
Please visit the website of the Cista Arts Gallery for more information: https://www.cistaarts.com/memoryandidentity
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“Memory and Identity” Cista Arts Gallery Online Exhibition and Magazine, , London, UK
(December 5th – 30th, 2022)
The works of Chrysanthe Maggidis connect with the theme of Memory and Identity through their exploration of the relationship between the physical body and the inner self. Rather than treating identity as something immediately visible or fixed, the works suggest that the self is shaped through accumulated experiences, emotions, and memories. The human figure becomes a vessel in which these experiences are retained, transformed, and expressed. In this sense, the body functions not only as a physical presence but also as a record of what has been lived and felt.
In The Subconscious and Plássein, Maggidis explores the less tangible dimensions of identity through the fragmented and layered representation of the human form. The use of charcoal, woodprint, and pastel creates surfaces in which marks, impressions, overlaps, and changes remain visible, evoking the way memory itself can be incomplete, layered, and continually reconstructed. The figures are not presented simply as identifiable individuals; instead, they become more universal embodiments of psychological and emotional experience. Their physical presence suggests the persistence of memory even when aspects of identity become uncertain or difficult to define.
This relationship between memory and the body becomes particularly significant within the context of John Locke’s proposition that personal identity extends as far as memory reaches. Maggidis’s works can therefore be understood as visual meditations on the traces through which identity is formed: what the body experiences, what the mind retains, and what remains within us beyond the immediate moment. Through the physicality of the materials and the expressive treatment of the figure, memory is transformed into a visual language, allowing the works to occupy the space between the remembered self and the continually evolving present self.
CISTA ARTS | International Group Exhibition | December 2022
Chrysanthi Maggidis participated in Memory and Identity, an international group exhibition presented by CISTA ARTS in December 2022, bringing together artists from different cultural and artistic backgrounds to explore the complex relationship between memory and the formation of identity. The exhibition was conceived around the idea, attributed to philosopher John Locke, that personal identity extends as far as memory reaches into the past—suggesting that memory is not simply a record of experience, but an essential component of how the self is constructed and understood.
Maggidis contributed two mixed-media works, The Subconscious (2019) and Plássein (2019), both of which extend her investigation of the human figure beyond physical representation. Working with charcoal, woodprint, and, in Plássein, pastel, she constructs layered images in which the body becomes a meeting point between physical presence, memory, and psychological experience. Her use of overlapping marks, impressions, erasures, and material traces reflects the fragmented nature of recollection, while the human form remains an anchor through which internal states and experiences are made visible.
Within the broader context of Memory and Identity, Maggidis’s work considers identity not as something fixed or immediately visible, but as something continually shaped through experience, perception, memory, and the relationship between the physical body and the inner self.
