[…] In the dream I was walking through, everything seemed like unanswered questions, at bus stops. When I wake up, I will remember none of it. And yet, for many years, the truth was knocking at my heart. I simply wanted to sleep, because it suited me.
Perhaps that is why the best poems do not merely leave us with unanswered questions. They change the way we ask the questions.
And that is already a form of knowledge, even if it is not the final truth.
K. Vita, July 2026
Without an Angle, Dead End in Summer, Until You Return, The Blue Tree: these are among the titles of the paintings that K. Vita is presenting to the public for the first time at MOMus–Museum of Contemporary Art, in the Case Studio space, as part of the exhibition Only the Coastline Remains, running from 1 October 2026 to 31 January 2027. The exhibition also serves as the opening event of the 61st Dimitria Festival of the Municipality of Thessaloniki.
And while these phrases read as titles of artworks, they also resonate as lyrics. The same is true of the exhibition title itself. Its “melodies” are carried into painting through colour, frames, forms and the elements that compose each work.
Best known to the public as a musician and lyricist, K. Vita has also pursued a parallel visual-art practice at various points throughout his career. His relationship with the visual arts began during his education, with studies in painting and art history in Melbourne, where he was born, and has continued through independent study and a sustained artistic practice.
Around twenty years after his first solo exhibition, held in 2005 at the Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki — now MOMus–Experimental Center for the Arts — K. Vita returns to the city with a series of dreamlike painted visions. The works in the exhibition date from 2019 to the present, revealing a different yet deeply kindred side of his artistic practice.
Drawing on Symbolism and the work of twentieth-century naïve painters, K. Vita creates an intensely coloured and deeply personal universe. Here, human solitude coexists with poetry and melancholy, but also with a subtle, hidden optimism: the hope that, even within an imagined landscape, people may one day find one another.
The mountains, trees, waters and skies that appear in the paintings do not refer to any specific geographical location. They are distorted, simplified and transformed in order to convey emotions such as isolation, anxiety, serenity, nostalgia and the fear of death.
Solitary figures or groups of people — friends, lovers, siblings — move or stand still, observing and gazing into the distance. They inhabit a suspended, timeless moment. Colours — pink, green, blue, purple, ochres and others — appear in both their most intense and their most delicate forms. They do not obey the fidelity of an actual landscape, but are chosen freely according to their emotional and thematic function.
The place we see therefore remains open: we cannot know whether it is real, imagined, dreamlike or nightmarish.
As viewers, we are invited to make the connections ourselves, placing the images wherever they meet our own inner worlds. Perhaps this is one of the most essential qualities of contemporary visual art and, more specifically, of K. Vita’s work: the artist’s desire to meet the dreams, aspirations and disappointments of the person standing before a painting.
Artistic Direction: Thouli Misirlοglou, Artistic Director, MOMus–Museum of Contemporary Art
Curator: Thodoris Markoglou, Art Historian and Curator, MOMus
Production: Municipality of Thessaloniki and MOMus–Museum of Contemporary Art, as part of the 61st Dimitria Festival
About
K. Vita was born in Melbourne, Australia, and grew up in Athens, where he lives and works. He began his musical studies at the Palladio Conservatory of Athens and studied Painting and Art History at the Prahran Institute in Melbourne. In 1992, he founded the electronic band Stereo Nova, while from 1996 onwards he has pursued a solo career as a musician, producer and composer. He has released more than 25 music albums and composed music for film, documentaries, dance and theatre. Alongside his musical practice, he continues to pursue painting and visual art.
He has collaborated with contemporary artists and creators across a wide range of disciplines and has presented musical compositions and projects at cultural institutions including the Alternative Stage of the Greek National Opera, the Onassis Stegi, the Athens Epidaurus Festival, the Athens Concert Hall, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center and London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). He also participated in the opening ceremony of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
In 2005, he presented his first solo visual-art exhibition at the Contemporary Art Centre of Thessaloniki, part of the State Museum of Contemporary Art, titled Soundscapes, curated by Vassilis Amanatidis and Thouli Misirlοglou. In 2025, PCAI (Polygreen Culture & Art Initiative) presented his visual-art project Space and Memory at the Pikionis Pavilion in Delphi, curated by Kika Kyriakakou, as part of the Ministry of Culture’s programme “All of Greece, One Culture”.
61st Dimitria / Opening Party — DJ Sets
21:00–22:00 — K. Vita
22:00–23:00 — Iakovos “Rudeboy” Komninos
To mark the opening of the visual-art exhibition Only the Coastline Remains… at MOMus–Museum of Contemporary Art and the launch of the 61st Dimitria Festival, K. Vita takes to the decks alongside longtime collaborator and concert keyboardist Vaios Machmoudes for a special DJ set. DJ Iakovos “Rudeboy” Komninos will carry the night forward with electricity, joy, intensity and rhythm from the very first beat.
Production: Municipality of Thessaloniki and MOMus–Museum of Contemporary Art, as part of the 61st Dimitria Festival.
