These drawings focus on the human figure through phases of gesture. I create a narrative based on physical language, the expansion and contraction of multiple interactions inherent in the body, rather than through facial identification. The poses and lighting allude alternately to the motion or absolute stillness of time. The emphasis on the postures rendered in chiaroscuro purposefully exaggerate shapes and proportions in order to build a sense of tension and anxiety within the work. The works vary in size displaying either an entire figure or extreme cropped sections of the body using two pure colors: black and white. This combination intends to reflect personal experiences based on the essence of psychological darkness within the black of the charcoal (such as anger, depression, isolation, etc.), and simultaneously giving a sense of hope through the white of the paper. The work is intended to be confrontational to the viewer, raising these internal struggles and thoughts to the surface. The human body carries memories, history, and identity through its skin, but each figure’s story is told through physical language. The medium of charcoal is ideally suited to my approach due to its transient physicality: reflecting motion, change, and non-permanent transformation. Charcoal, similar to the body, carries a sense of history within the medium, remembering every mark, erasure, blur, and overlap. My name is Chrysanthe Maggidis and I am an emerging female artist who was born in Greece and raised in the United States of America. Living and immersing in two distinct cultures and being educated in both countries has made me truly bicultural and bilingual. As an undergraduate student I pursued a BA in Art, Archaeology, and Art History at Dickinson College (2012-2016). In my four years of studio practice I was trained in various mediums to advanced level, including drawing (charcoal, graphite, pastel, ink), painting (oil, acrylic, egg tempera), printmaking (etching, woodblock carving, lithography, monoprinting), sculpture (wood, metal/welding, plaster), and photography (film, digital photography, digital illustration, Lightroom Photoshop). Afterwards, I pursued an MFA degree in drawing, painting, and printmaking at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia (2017-2019), where my art practice evolved into creating mixed media works using charcoal, pastel, fabric paper, and woodprint. In 2019, I returned to Greece and earned a second MA degree in Greek and Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece (2020-2021), while simultaneously working as a staff member in archaeological excavations. I am currently a PhD candidate for Classical Sculpture at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and, simultaneously, an active artist having had a solo exhibition at the Municipal Gallery of Lamia and participating in the Biennale Chianciano 2022.