ATHINA CHRONI (HELLAS) PORTRAITS 16/2- 15/3 1998 CAFFE STRETTO KAROLOY DIHLL 18 / 275-159 DAILY 9.00-3.00 Athina Chroni was born in Ioannina in 1968. After studying Archaeology and History of Art at the University of Athens, she did a doctoral thesis at the National Technical University of Athens on "Application of Photointerpretation and Remote Sensing in Archaeology". She has been practicing photography since 1990, and has followed the seminars of the Prefectural Committee for Adult Education (Hiraklio, Attica) from 1991-1994, and the Platon Rivellis photography seminars in 1994 and 1995. Part of the "Self-portraits" series has been shown in a group exhibition by five photographers in January 1997, at the "Stavlos" Gallery; the "Portraits" series was presented in a solo exhibition in March 1997 at the Society of Greek Stage Directors, which also brought out a hand-printed limited and numbered album under the same title. Athina Chroni uses square frames to delimit portraits of her friends. A perimeter as different from the horizontal structure of the cinema as it is from the vertical orientation of the traditional painted portrait, having - like the circle - a rational, a true centre, a hub that imposes balance of organisation and freedom of reading. Her black and white photographs describe people integrated into their space or isolated from it. Expressionless, silent, image-like, they face the lens. Thanny captures her faces quite simply, standing directly in front of them. She records, she draws out their faces, but what she is really doing is withdrawing their souls. In the end, these impressions / delineations / portraits synthesise her own character through the eyes that rule them. Yannis Marapas