Chryssa

Chryssa (Vardea Mavromichali) was an American pioneer in light art and luminist sculpture widely known for her neon, steel, aluminum and acrylic glass installations. She worked from the mid-1950s in New York City studios and has been working since 1992 in the studio she established in Neos Kosmos, Athens, Greece. At the age of twenty, she moved to Paris, where she studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumière and was exposed to the postwar Surrealist milieu and its seminal figures, artists such as Andre Breton and Max Ernst. In 1954 she attended the California School of Fine Arts and at the end of the same year she settled in New York, where, fascinated and inspired by the vibrant environment, started her international career.

The urban landscapes, the inscriptions with the bright neon lights, the metal constructions, and the signs of Chinatown became the key elements of her inspiration. Her work, like New York, is both poetic and dynamic—ranking her among the most pioneering and acclaimed sculptors of the contemporary art scene.

Courtesy of Mamush Gallery