STELLA AYIANNITI THE MAGIC TRIP French Institute Galerie Gilles Caron For several years now Stella Ayianniti has taken a particular interest in the minor motions of daily living. The act of chewing, contact with food, the decomposition of foodstuffs, all reveal as if by magic the contradictions of their connection to reality. The relationship with food appears in turn comic and worrisome, sensual and contemplative, immediate and complex. Where observation of the ordinary might appear boring, her photographs trace a link to human existence that is both greedy and unambiguous. As others have explored the space of their own bedroom, Stella Ayianniti devotes herself to the kitchen, a region par excellence feminine and transformational, like a decadent Huysmans capable of exhaustive observation of the reflection of a glass of wine on a garnet-coloured carafe placed on a crimson velvet cloth. And the vast colour photographs, those close-ups of pineapples, sardines, eggs that are pretexts for a playfulness composed of greed and eroticism, also have tales to tell that are empty of all motion, tales whose source lies in the systematic sublimation of matter. Stella Ayianniti was born in Katerini in 1979. Following her studies in Thessaloniki, she is currently completing her training at the School of Fine Arts in Bourges.