A new dynamic on the art scene

Last week artist Lara Sophie Benjamin presented her first solo exhibition under the name Reverberations at Apocalypse Gallery in Nicosia to a crowd of art enthusiasts.

The gallery was packed but surely there are still some art lovers out there that have yet to get lost in Benjamin’s art. And get lost you shall until Valentine’s day when the art that concentrates on the idea of liminal spaces will end its journey at the gallery and start a new journey somewhere else.

The contrast in colours, bold shapes in places, and flickers of lines almost taking flight are what make these 20 or so paintings stand out. The shapes could be said to represent the artist’s fascination with spaces and rooms where life is lived – something Benjamin finds visually interesting.

Reverberations is a collection of paintings that have come about due to the artist’s reaction to what surrounds her. This natural process of letting the environment be your muse, together with the artist’s own feel about it and her inner world is what led her to put paint to canvas and create.

The name for this exhibition comes from French psychiatrist Eugene Minkowski who said “if, having fixed the original form in our mind’s eye, we ask ourselves how that form comes alive and fills with life, we discover a new dynamic and vital category, a new property of the universe: reverberation.”

A dedicated artist, Benjamin studied art at the Camberwell College of Art in London, the Cyprus College of Art and completed an MA in Art Practice at the University of East Anglia. She has been part of a number of group exhibitions but this is her first time going solo.

Reverberations
Solo exhibition by Lara Sophie Benjamin. Until February 14. Apocalypse Gallery, 30 Chytron Street, Nicosia. Monday- Friday: 10.30am-1pm and 5pm-8pm. Saturday: 10.30am-1pm. Tel: 22-766655

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.