Chryssa is known for her neon sculptures, paintings, and works on paper influenced by her interest in the signage of Times Square in New York City. Her work incorporates what she refers to as “symbols of communication”—one of which is the American cent (¢). Chryssa Vardea-Mavromichali was born in Athens in 1933. She left the country for Paris and studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. She moved to the United States and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute before settling in New York in the mid-1950s. Her first solo exhibition was held at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1961. Chryssa’s work has been exhibited in museums throughout the United States and Europe, including the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, and she is also represented in The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection.
