Niovi Kafantari, The Necessary Other

'The Necessary Other' is a contemporary art exhibition of new paintings by Niovi Kafantari, her first solo exhibition in London, running into early November. It explores how identity is shaped through encounter, taking its title from Adriana Cavarero's philosophy of relational identity: the self comes into being through the presence, memory and gaze of another. Trained as a sculptor, Kafantari builds her paintings through mass, with figures that lean, embrace, support or resist one another, drawing upon archaeology, cinema, theatre, literature and art history. Works such as 'Just Met', 'A Pastoral Fragment', 'Last Tango' and 'Married, a second time' leave intimacy, vulnerability and ambiguity deliberately unresolved.