This way traces never die: a poetry of decomposition

Dimitra Gkoutzou
Jul 16
4 min read

A.a Traces of time

This week, we had the opportunity to visit Athina Koumparouli’s exhibition This way traces never die at a. antonopoulou.art gallery. Entering the space we felt like stepping into a time capsul,e, where we become wanderers among traces of post-conditional yet oddly realistic moments. Objects carved like fossil stones, petrified branches, and photos that trace destructive forces or paradoxically restored or produced items unveil and preserve the ever-changing condition of living organisms after they are brutally confronted by external forces. Compared to her past exhibitions, once more, ideas such as decay, preservation, and restoration of the material world raise new questions: How, when, where is the material object considered a presence or an absence? How does its presence or absence construct our gaze?

Untitled, 2024, concrete, styrofoam, honeycomb, metal base, 18 x 36 x 6 cm

B.a A matter of void

Blending archaeology, documentation and interpretation, her recent artwork treats traces as hybrid readymades. Decay or destruction, as part of nature’s ever-changing process, alters the materials’ condition. Wood tar- the main material reference, is the result of destructive distillation produced by heating wood in a low-oxygen environment. Such potent substances remind us of nature’s destructive condition while at the same time serving as a new useful tool. Additionally, the void could be identified as decomposition due to its property to substitute matter with absence, yet it either transforms this absence into presence as memory and as matter. In Koumparouli’s series, physical properties are interpreted in conceptual lenses. To be more specific, they are symbolically charged. They serve as memory traces of human or natural intervention.

How can you map something that is missing?2023,print on photo luster paper, forex,60 x 40 cm,ed. 1/3

B.b The experience of immaterial presence

Inspired by archaeological methodology, she uses stratification as a creative process to stratify and blend material and temporal strata that expose human and natural intervention in her sculptures. This blend is done either through photogrammetry, paradoxical restored sculptures/readymades and photographs that either end up as hybrid and uncanny 3D objects or dualities of presence/absence. Moreover, this conceptual overlay functions either as an emotional yet tactile map or a repulsive hypothetical scenario. Considering that, we ought to look at them as witnesses or foretellers. What will our future become? Realizing the present absence of the material world we reflect on how it shapes the material world. This reflective state is constituted in the shadows, reflections or even smell of these materials. An extension of the material world is the immateriality of matter. What will remain? Instead of broken objects we may only notice shadows, reflections and smells that become traces of the object's presence and possible future remnants of an eroded ecosystem. Not only adds to its dimensional depth but reveals the particular matter's identity. As Koumparouli herself stated: It all started with a wood tar smell.

My Memories Are Pixels,2024, part of installation view

B.c The painterly quality of readymades

Visually but partially, gazing at some of her artworks, we look at shadows, hazy reflections, flattened images of forms that show how traces are shadowed, flattened, reflected. Reducing the forms to shapes, Koumparouli introduces a 2D, almost painterly quality that reminds us of Richter's sfumato used in still life, flat colours- shapes or Antony Tapies sgraffito. Specifically, On landscapes and persistent entities, stained glass contains flat painted plant shapes that create the impression of a negative shadow that persists to exist in a space. This suggests an immaterial physicality that is found not in the material object but in the flattened impression of the material's identity(the plant). In addition, reflective impressions of matter are noticed in the background of her Studies on Healing III. The reflection in the metal reminds us of Richter's still lifes. Especially, the softened and rendered forms could be considered as ephemeral traces that align with ideas of fragility, time and absence. Time and absence is a theme that has been articulated as well in Antony Tapies “matter paintings” especially in works like Grey ochre or Snake in a square. Evoking weathered, earthen surfaces like an archaeological ruin or spiral fossil, Koumparoulis' ready-made fossils or hybrid sculptures remind us of Tapies material and multilayered paintings that treat surface as a site of erosion and memory.

Studies on Healing III, 2024, glass, ceramic, 33 x 13 cm.

On landscapes and persistent entities, stained glass, sandblasted, 1,5x1m, 1 of 3

Untitled I, II,2025,asphalt engravedasphalt engravedasphalt engraved, 14x44x25cm and 25x25x15cm

C.c Grief as a gesture of preservation

To sum up, Koumparouli opens up new dimensions of stratification. Her hybrid readymades unfold immaterial traces of matter that unfold the poetry of decomposition. In that way, she invites us into a space of collective grief, not as resignation, but as a part of a healing journey toward a more sustainable future.