The Museum of Modern Greek Art of of Rhodes presents the solo exhibition of Nefeli Massia titled Voyages of Light, curated by Kostas Prapoglou.

The exhibition, taking place in the New Wing of the Nestorideion Melathron, shapes a setting where light is approached as a force that forms what we perceive. Through installations combining acrylic elements, mylar film, marble dust, and LED lighting interventions, the artist arranges a sequence of shifts. Surfaces receive light, carry it, deflect it, return it, leading the image into a state of ongoing instability.

At the core of her thinking lies the intensity of Rhodian light. A light that emerges through the sea, the stone, the heat, and the accumulated duration of the island. Massia approaches it as a material with its own behaviour, observing its transitions throughout the day, from the sharpness of the morning to the fading of night.

Vision ceases to be neutral. The body is drawn into the process. Transparency gains weight, reflection withdraws, shadow marks a second inscription. Movement alters everything we see, proximity unsettles scale.

The works on view, developed over recent years, sustain an internal tension, with desire, memory and the need for orientation remaining active. The gaze seeks a stable point, yet this point is constantly displaced.

Massia’s practice is grounded in a deep understanding of material. Her process is manual and experimental. Each material responds differently: acrylic surfaces retain and redirect, mylar vibrates, while marble dust introduces a layered quality that resonates with a long sculptural tradition. This relationship has been cultivated through sustained dedication, while her background in mathematics meets her artistic experience, producing a balance that never resolves into full control.

At the same time, the exhibition carries an underlying reference to figures such as Daedalus and Icarus, predominantly as a mode of thinking. In a time marked by acceleration and automated systems, the question of balance returns: how can inner calibration be sustained when rates of acceleration exceed human processing?

In Voyages of Light, light withdraws from the role of revelation and becomes the very field in which the world takes form.

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Nefeli Massia: is a Greek-born based in New York whose work spans across painting, sculpture, printmaking and installation. Massia holds an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the University of Pennsylvania and diplomas in painting from the University of Fine Arts in Athens and mathematics at the University of Ioannina. Her work is included in several private and public contemporary art collections worldwide. She is a recipient of numerous awards, including grants from Onassis Foundation and the Agricultural Bank of Greece and scholarships from the Onassis Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania. Massia’s solo exhibitions include: Dreamstorming at the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine Studies, Venice (2003), which was exhibited within the auspices of the Hellenic Presidency of the European Union; A Telluric Path at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC (2008); and Remaking Realities at Stevenson University, Maryland (2011). One of her early group exhibitions was at the Soviet Ministry of Culture Show at the Palace of Soviet Artists, Moscow (1988), followed by the Sofia Biennale (1989), where she received the second award for distinction. In 1990, she participated in the UNESCO International Competition Man and Human Values into the 21^st Century in Athens. Subsequent international exhibitions include the 19^th Biennale of Ljubljana (1991), the Biennale of Maastricht (1993), the 3^rd Biennale of Belgrade (1994), and the UNESCO Competition in Paris (1994). She also participated in The Missing Peace Project, a traveling exhibition shown at institutions including the Frost Museum in Florida, the San Antonio Museum of Art in Texas, and the UCLA Fowler Museum in California (2006-11). Most recently, she participated in the exhibitions wanderlust / all passports, Schliemann – Melas Mansion (2024) in Athens and Femicide (2025) in New York City. She lives and works in New York.