This March, painter Alison Blickle teams up with Irini Karayannopoulou for Alien Hand, a joint exhibition organized by Blackbird Rook and General Assembly in London (6–21 March 2026, 12 Saint George Street). The title comes from alien hand syndrome—the neurological condition where a person’s hand seems to move on its own. In this context, it points to the feeling many artists describe: that the work sometimes takes on a life of its own.
Blickle’s paintings focus on mysterious female figures set in charged, cinematic scenes. Sometimes they come from staged photoshoots, sometimes from fragments of different bodies and references. Rather than straightforward portraits, the figures act more like characters moving through loose narratives. Her recent series Future Ruins, shown at Kravets Wehby Gallery, imagines a future shaped by environmental loss, where traces of nature still appear in strange, beautiful ways.
Karayannopoulou approaches myth and identity from another angle—by constantly rewriting her own story. In different tellings she has appeared as a physician, an economist speaking at a conference in Geneva, a political rival to Abraham Lincoln, and even a historical chronicler whose work supposedly influenced William Shakespeare. Other versions place her as an explorer, astronomer, or sculptor working between Paris and Athens. The shifting biography becomes part of the work itself.
Bringing together artists based in Los Angeles and Athens, Alien Hand connects two practices interested in mythology, the female figure, and storytelling. Rather than a direct collaboration, the show lets the works sit in conversation—where similar symbols and characters appear in different forms across both artists’ paintings. The result is a show about imagination, identity, and the strange moment when making something feels slightly outside your control.
words Alexa Wang
