Nitra Gallery Thessaloniki

 

Winter Journey

Irini Kana

Nitra Gallery presents in Thessaloniki a new solo exhibition by Irini Kana, an artist with a long-standing and distinctive presence in contemporary Greek painting.

The exhibition brings together works that highlight the unmistakable dynamism of her practice: her signature technique, radiant use of colour, richly textured surfaces, expressive brushwork and luminous, vibrating palette. Her imagination blends the colours of a world that feels both familiar and transcendent, and through bold gestural movement her work summons images, sensations and memories, unfolding a universe that is intimate, atmospheric and deeply poetic. Kana’s painting draws its depth from materiality, gesture and her instinctive relationship with colour, transforming it into a vessel of memory and human experience.

Art historian Manos Stefanidis writes: “What does Irini Kana truly paint when she ignites her canvases with terres and ochres, with vermillion, umbers, warm oranges and blue violets? She paints, in my view, memory as it slips away, those liquid moments that have passed, the idealised images of an adolescent dreamscape. Her ambition is to render visible every form of love: for life, for people and for things.”

Irini Kana was born in Chania and studied painting under Panagiotis Tetsis at the Athens School of Fine Arts, graduating with distinction in 1990. She has held 27 solo exhibitions in Greece, Germany and Cyprus, and has participated in more than 300 group shows across Greece, Cyprus, Germany, Belgium, Italy, France, Australia and China. Her works are represented in major public and private collections, including the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the Hellenic Parliament, the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, the Goulandris Museum in Athens and Andros, the University of Nicosia, the Chania Municipal Gallery, the Moschandreou Collection, the Thrace Foundation, the Hydra Museum, the National Bank of Greece, Eurobank, OPAP, AGET Heracles, Interamerican and numerous private collections in Greece and abroad.

Opening: Friday, December 5, 2025, 19:00–21:00
Duration: through January 10, 2026
Nitra Gallery, 51 Philippou St., Roman Forum
Visiting hours: Wednesday–Friday 11:00–14:30, Friday 17:00–20:00, Saturday 11:00–15:00 and by appointment