The ancient alchemists defined Elixsir (or Elisir) an alchemical substance capable of giving eternal life. More recently, in the pharmaceutical context, the same word responded to the definition of liquid medicine composed of different elements.
Irini Karayannopoulou works starting from this duality of meaning. By researching archival materials, magazines, newspapers, postcards, history books, the artist develops a specific project for the village of Polcenigo. Painting and collage on images and memories are installed along the streets, alleys, inside the shop windows and in some hidden points of the village.
Elixsir is a composite of different elements that also includes: a short film made in collaboration with the film editor Sandrine Cheyrol and the psychiatrist and Sound Artist Chris Kalafatis, in which Polcenigo is reinterpreted from a historical and naturalistic point of view; and finally, a pop magazine in pocket format, in which the artist intervenes on the images of famous actors of the golden era with the techniques of drawing and collage.

For Irini Karayannopoulou (Athens, 1973) international fashion and politics magazines, newspapers, and vintage and contemporary photos form the basis of her intervention through painting, collage, drawing and video, in an open dialogue with the collective stories of popular culture, aimed at building new semantic systems. Her practice is guided by both personal and political reflections. In 2020, she exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, and in 2019, at the MOMus Museum, on the occasion of the 7th Thessaloniki Biennial in Greece.