About

VENIVINCE is a collaboration between Kalliopi Venieri (ballerina, choreographer, sculptor) and Vincent Guy (theatre director, actor, photographer).

 Our purpose is to create new works from our mix of artistic disciplines. We also draw freely on others’ creative skills.

 We were invited to mount two “solo” exhibitions in Athens and a third was at the Archaeological Museum Delphi in 2017. Our most recent was at Contemporary Space Athens, March 2018. A poetry performance, “Philhellenes:English poets who loved Greece” we presented at Sikelianos Theatre Delphi and at Theocharakis Foundaton Athens in 2019.

Our current project is a ballet film called “Life Story”.

Ever since I was young, I’ve been attracted to what we call in Greek "Αλιλοεπιδραση τον Τεχνον"; in English “Interplay between the Arts”.

On tour as a classical dancer, I spent much of my spare time in the world’s art galleries. Choreography strongly appealed to me too. I then added painting to my creative repertoire with five shows of "Impressions of Flowers & Dancers". Then came sculpture, a new way of expressing the dance that I always carry within me.

Vincent Guy brought the art of photography to the mix, which led to our first joint show as VENIVINCE at the Museum Herakleidon in Athens, curated by Hans Hendricks. It was a privilege to exhibit there; a few years before, it had housed a major exhibition of dance sculptures by Degas. Since then other doors have opened to us to show more of our joint work. 

My road to creative photography has been quite a lengthy one. When I went to Peru as a teenager I took a camera with me – but came back with little more than travel snaps. For years I had no camera at all. When my daughter Zoë was born, a new camera seemed a basic tool of parenting, so as to stick things in the family album.

Only when Kalliopi began producing her first sculptures did something happen.  I took photos of them, quite basic. As time went by, her work advanced and my pictures with them. Discoveries with lighting, shadows, textiles and movement recalled my theatre-directing days. I began processing the photos in the computer, at first just tidying up, eventually manipulating some into exciting new forms. I also take landscapes and portraits, but we live in the era of the smartphone and digital super-camera; many people take pictures in these genres as good as and better than mine. My VENIVINCE photos at their best do, I believe, break new ground.