I and the Village
I and the Village
Solo Exhibition of Paintings and Monoprints at Rebecca Hossack Gallery London.
6th April – 3rd May 2025
This is Sophie Charalambous’s second solo exhibition at the Rebecca Hossack gallery and takes its name from Marc Chagall’s 1911 masterpiece. She was inspired by both Chagall’s rich colour palette as well as his subject matter; the give and take between beings, the vibrant natural world that surrounds them and the mutual relationship between humans, animals and plants.
Charalambous now expands previous motifs of fig trees, prickly pears and other Mediterranean flora into landscapes layered with a rich diversity of life playing out through the seasons and the interconnected cycles of village life. They are images that combine the allusive strands of memory and dream with the hard-won riches of close observation. Like Chagall, Charalambous creates her own complete and personal world of stoic villagers, inquisitive goats, transitory birds, flowering cacti and abundant trees. Large pieces are made from smaller studies using observation directly from the landscape and woven with imagery from memory, old photographs and imagination.
The work in the exhibition has also been inspired by drawing over many months directly from “Le Quattro Volte” Michelangelo Frammartino’s poetic documentary style film about a small rural village in Italy and his cinematic composition, structure and storytelling have informed this new body of work.
