MARIANNA GIOKA

Marianna Gioka’s works have, from very early days, been distinguished by an extraordinary sensitivity to her materials. Her wide variety of mark making has a balance and harmony whichever gesture she calls upon. Initially, her interest in landscape used an idea of architecture to provide the structure; an earlier series was inspired by Italo Calvino’s ‘invisible cities’ while other pictures include tiny landscapes, which call to mind Vermeer’s ‘view of delft’. Gradually however, her paintings have acquired greater freedom and her marks have become even more diversified: the gestures now floating in space. For her most recent canvases, Gioka begins by painting an abstract background, which resembles a sky scene; after this, she begins the lengthy and extensive process of mark-making using a bewildering variety of pens and nibs and gradually and very organically the structure of the work is formed.