Booth E11, Messe Basel, Switzerland
June 17 – 21, 2026
Left to Right: Salomé Economides, Emergency Kit, 2026 © Salomé Economides, courtesy Roma Gallery; Aubert Issachar, Totemic Grid I, 2026 © Aubert Issachar, courtesy Roma Gallery
At the 2026 edition of Volta Basel, Roma Gallery will present works by Salomé Economides and Aubert Issachar, bringing together two artists who examine contemporary subjectivity through distinctive approaches to painting.
The gallery’s booth will feature recent works by both artists.
Economides’s paintings, inspired by consumer culture, mass media, and 1990s iconography, employ a controlled visual language in which games, toys, and symbols of contemporaneity operate as tools of anthropological inquiry. Pleasure, permeated by critique, characterises her work, which anatomises visual culture as a formative system shaping behaviour, desire, and the construction of agency.
Issachar’s latest series, titled Totemic Grids, emerges through the combination of linguistic elements, fragmented figures, and highly gestural forms. Inspired by myth, numerology, and language systems, his work addresses communication as a generative process, bringing into view underlying systems of order and control.
At Roma Gallery’s booth, the two practices, presented together, examine symbolic systems as a site of inquiry into the financial, linguistic, and psychological contexts that shape contemporary subjectivity.
Economides’ work Emergency Kit, created in 2026, is structured as a frontal, boxed containment system, in which objects are compressed into a pictorial space that defies depth. Saturated reds and stylised objects define a hyperreal visual field that oscillates between attraction and alarm. In the form of an emergency kit, it presents a system in which coping is commodified and readiness is performed, while childhood forms persist through their transformation into systems of consumption and control.
Issachar’s Totemic Grid Ι, created in 2026, develops through rectilinear grids of fragmented words, letter clusters, and coded inscriptions that function as visual signs subject to repetition and interruption. Simultaneously, overlapping forms, figures and abstract motifs disrupt spatial and linguistic coherence unveiling language as a contingent system in which communication is continually constructed, obscured, and renegotiated.
Salomé Economides (b.2000, Athens) has developed a recognisable painting practice that examines systems of consumption and image production, drawing on visual material from mass media, commercial packaging, and 1990s imagery.
At the centre of her work lies the accumulation of pharmaseuticals, branded objects, pop symbols and visual elements that operate as signifiers of broader mechanisms of control and desire. Through exuberant colour, dynamic stylisation, and the incorporation of text in the form of recognisable indeces, her paintings investigate how consumer culture shapes notions of agency, autonomy, and social identity.
Economides received her BA from Goldsmiths, University of London (2021), and pursued further studies at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London (2022).
She has presented one solo and has participated in group exhibition in Athens, Gstaad and London. Her work is included in significant private collections in Greece and abroad.
She lives and works in Athens.
Aubert Issachar (b. 1979, London) works in painting, examining systems of language, symbolism, and perception.
His practice combines gestural abstraction with symbolic and linguistic structures, inspired by mythology, numerology, and architectural archetypes. Recurring motifs, including labyrinthine and palindromic sequences, operate as devices through which meaning is constructed. Through controlled mark-making and stratified surfaces, his work considers communication as both a generative mechanism and a site of obstruction.
Issachar has presented solo exhibitions in São Paulo, London, Geneva, and Gstaad, and has participated in group exhibitions in Brazil and across Europe.
He lives and works between Greece and the United States.
Roma Gallery (est. 2019) is a Greek gallery specialising in modern and contemporary art. Committed to a transgenerational dialogue between historical and contemporary art, it collaborates with a diverse array of artists, estates, foundations, and the secondary market. Beyond its exhibition programme, Roma Gallery is actively engaged in publishing, producing meticulously researched exhibition catalogues and artist monographs that contribute to the critical discourse surrounding modern and contemporary art.
VOLTA BASEL
Booth E11 Roma Gallery
Messe Basel, Switzerland
June 17–21, 2026
For Inquiries: info@roma-gallery.com
Roma Gallery
5 Roma Str., Athens 10673
roma-gallery.com