Stella Kapezanou: Bad Girls, Big Dragons

This summer, Stella Kapezanou returns to the Athenian art scene with Bad Girls, Big Dragons, a blazing solo exhibition at the Municipal Gallery of Athens that raises the temperature of the city’s cultural landscape. Running from July 3 to September 7, the exhibition brings together a series of archival, old, and new works, and acts as a tribute to other ways of looking, longing, and belonging. It turns into a hymn to alternative ways of performing a self through unapologetically and wilfully embodying a series of identities.

At the heart of the exhibition stands a monumental 6 by 2 metre painting, created specifically for the entrance of the show. This hero piece echoes the title Bad Girls, Big Dragons, setting the tone for a journey into a world ruled by instinct, seduction, and sovereignty.

The dragon—a symbol of what’s untamed, othered, protective yet concurrently intimidating—is a central figure and an axis of this show. Etymologically arising from the ancient Greek word derkomai, meaning to see clearly, to encounter or enact a sharp, piercing gaze, the dragon becomes a parable for an otherworldly stare, for a spatial and metaphorical way of looking with alternative realities. And through touching this beyond of what’s canonically imposed, Kapezanou’s works legitimise the coexistence of species emancipated, self-assured, empowered, which are now, finally, the ones ruling the world.

Feminine entities—naked, seductive, libidinal—surrender to them all: dragons, ravens, snakes. Some submit to their power; others dominate their bodies when riding them, when holding them close. Flames surround them all, burning the land, lighting it up. Fire, to them, is a means of protection, a tool for claiming a safe space, a vessel for demanding agency over their bodies, psyches, lands.

What does it take to form new worlds—and to occupy them after? How could we, women or non-human species, grow through resilience, resistance, and anarchy in order to break through from systemic ways of seeing and performing ourselves? These are, amongst others, the questions raised in Kapezanou’s omniverse, which sets its eyes on other ways of looking at power, encountering touch, touching desire, surrendering to the instinctive.

The exhibition is accompanied by a printed publication featuring a curatorial essay and photographic documentation of the works.

Curated by: CHEAT CODE
Exhibition Design: Katerina Apostolou

About the Artist:
Stella Kapezanou is a visual artist based in Athens. Her work explores vulnerability, symbolism, and the aesthetics of power through large-scale paintings and ceramic sculptures. She worked in fashion and media for 12 years. She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts and Chelsea College of Arts in London, receiving dual scholarships. In 2024, she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to attend the thematic residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute (USA), and was commissioned to design the new visual identity for the 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. She has received multiple awards for her practice, and her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions across Europe, the UK, and the United States.