Jacky Winter is pleased to present Life as a Circus by Christina Darras – a series of paintings, crochet, paper puppets, and soft sculpture that explore the playful, unpredictable nature of life. Through her tactile practice, Darras investigates themes of uncertainty and uprootedness. Forms borrowed from circus characters encapsulate a sense of constant movement. Characterised by a feast of colours and recurring circles symbolising perpetual motion, the series features both figurative and abstract forms.

The Circus as an entity is a movable feast. It belongs only to itself, and every place it visits becomes home until the next move. The circus performers live and perform within the circus tent, without familiarity with the external world. Darras chooses the circus as a metaphor for the transitions in life, constantly moving to uncharted maps. Grappling between the tangible and the illusory, the paper puppets mirror the fragility of their beings. The integration of crochet and threads extends the image, invoking meditative labour and the tangible presence of the hand. The forms and characters float in a negative space to underscore the uncertainty of things.

Life as a Circus is a celebratory expression of the illusion of reality, as all performances are.

Christina Darras is an interdisciplinary artist and curator of Greek – Athenian origin. Her practice includes painting, printmaking, the use of textiles and threads. Through lengthy tactile processes, she explores issues of familiarity and unpredictability and the relation between the real and the mythical. She lives and works in Mentone.