Drawing of neon study III

Chryssa (Vardea-Mavromichali) was born in Athens in 1933. She studied in Paris (Académie de la Grande Chaumière, 1953-54) and in San Francisco (California School of Fine Arts, 1954-55). In 1955 he moved permanently to New York. The source of her inspiration are images and phenomena of contemporary metropolitan life, while signs and symbols that dominate the written word of mass communication, in printed matter and signs stand out. Already from her early works (e.g. Cycladic Books, 1957-1962), the purely visual treatment of linguistic symbols stands out, while in the 1960s she developed the best-known feature of her work, the use of neon tubes in various shapes and colours, making clear reference to the glow of advertising signs (e.g. In the early 1990s, she worked for a time in Greece, using as her studio the hall of an old cinema. From 2007 she lived permanently in Athens until her death in 2013.