The consummate artist
Anita Antoniades has revived the ancient art of water gilding with exquisite success
“Yes, the spiritual aspect in my work is strong – essential even – but my goal is to develop the art a step beyond the spiritual,” says artist Anita Antoniades.
I was talking over a simple but exquisite lunch with this accomplished artist whose work of the past few years has focused on the use of gold leaf. It had been evident from the moment I entered her home that Anita is a consummate artist, treating all opportunities for creativity equally. She doesn’t differentiate between the passion expended in the interior decoration of her home, the precision labour used in polishing the gold of an icon to a mirror finish, the delicate expertise in preparing a stylishly designed luncheon for her guests, or her genteel hospitality and finely nuanced manners in general. In seamless fashion the intruding stranger is immediately made to feel an honoured guest. I was reminded of some words from a Greek poet, “Art is the supreme means to help people approach one another.”
Anita earned a Fine Arts degree in Australia, majoring in etching and screen printing, more than 30 years ago and she has various works in private collections in New York, Brisbane, London, Milan and Limassol. Lately she has been making a name for herself (which should increase exponentially when her one-woman show opens in Nicosia later this year) because she has mastered and exploited to astounding effect an ancient, painstaking method of gold-leaf application known as water gilding. This is a labour-intensive method that is eschewed for that very reason by almost all gold-leaf practioners. Anita knows of only one other artist on the island who employs the technique. It has taken her 15 years to fine tune the old-world method to her own high degree of artistic standard but the results clearly justify the effort.
Interest in the purely aesthetic qualities of gold developed in Anita from a young age. She was born in Famagusta but raised between homes in Australia and the UK. In London, she regularly visited many galleries and museums with her family but in particular her grandfather brought her for weekly excursions to the British Museum where she was instantly fascinated by the use of gold in Egyptian antiquity.
The King Tutankhamen exhibit was a flashpoint in her growing interest. It was perhaps at this moment she intuited that this precious metal would play a major role in her destiny. The ancient Egyptians revered gold, at first not for its exalted material worth but rather, paradoxically, for the spiritual values they attributed to it. They believed it to be divine and used it, masterfully, to purify and protect the soul on its journey to the next world. The Pharaohs employed only their most accomplished artists to work in gold and when we view these preserved artifacts in a museum setting we are still, in this jaded era, astounded at their unique beauty.
The Book of Kells is arguably the most beautiful, spiritually charged, illuminated manuscript in the civilised world. This ninth century work of calligraphy, painstakingly produced by generations of monks, was another powerful influence on Anita’s art. She studied reproductions in elaborately illustrated books devoted to this masterpiece and drew inspiration for her own style of lettering. Its influence can be felt in the rich, idiosyncratic design of the ancient Greek letters on the reverse side of several of Anita’s iconic pieces (see photo). It has taken Anita fifteen years of trial and error to perfect the technique.
Her education in gilding really began in 1991 when Anita returned to Cyprus with her family and she became enthralled with the gold leaf adorning the island’s abundance of icons. She scrutinised these religious paintings throughout the island, both in the north (her family is from Davlos in Kyrenia) and south. Many visitors to Cyprus, especially art lovers, find themselves going from church to church, transfixed by the esoteric allure of these icons (many, in fact, have been asked to vacate monasteries and churches when they are caught endlessly videotaping). She had purchased a detailed instruction book in London, and through a happy coincidence her father was a friend of one of Cyprus’ legendary iconography masters, Father Kalinikos of Stavrovouni Monastery.
Anita began a casual yet fruitful apprenticeship with the abbot, who was an inspiring, demanding teacher. “When you paint an icon, it is a prayer,” were his first words to the eager novice, who instinctively took them to heart. She was advised by Father Kalinikos (advised rather than formally instructed because only men could officially study with him) for several years.
“My first icons were simply copies in order to relate to the actual technique,” says Anita, who met regularly with the master in his small workshop down the hill from the monastery. She did become proficient in this religious art form and has since featured many images of saints in her work. In the end, however, she knew she had to go beyond simple iconography.
“I learned how to paint icons but I wasn’t gaining enough knowledge about gilding, which was the direction in which I wanted to progress and evolve.”
Emerging from her work in icons, Anita explored the indigenous artwork of the Australian aborigines. She floated the imagery of native songs and the animals sacred to the aborigines across fine linen. She sculpted abstract design in aged wood, which material in itself, she claims, “reflects the synergetic quality of an essential living substance that is constantly changing”.
This idea of natural change, and of the necessary impermanence of all life, is one of the driving forces of Anita’s art. She is not intimidated or stymied by change, rather she embraces it. The French poet and art critic Baudelaire said, “Change is Art, Art is Change” and Anita’s work strives to celebrate that change. Each piece can create a different impression when viewed from a different angle. In different kinds of light – intense sunlight, the ever-morphing light of afternoon, or well-designed artificial light – her art reveals qualities not glimpsed just seconds before.
This is never more true than when we view her work with water gilding, which creates a surface that when compared to other simpler styles of gilding, is more reflective, more ethereal. She polishes the gold to a mirror finish so that the shimmer of the precious metal is not a mere enhancement, as it is in most icons. Rather, her intent is to make this iridescent refraction a focal point of the art.
To a great degree, this intent has been nourished by her return to Cyprus and to a renewed appreciation of its lush beauty and the quality of its light. “It’s a Greek light,” she says, “with a very special quality. It’s more than whatever chemistry or combination of elements make up the effect of the light. I find there’s an intense spirituality to the light here, if you can only slow down, open up and let it work its magic.
“Seferis said that he believed there was a ‘humanising function’ in the light here, and I have to agree. I wish people living here could appreciate it, and all the natural beauty they have around them. Just look at the variety of trees here and flowers. When I go to the north, to Kyrenia, for instance, the landscape is so different, you’d think you’re in a completely different country.”
Anita is in many ways the archetypal Cypriot artist. Typically, the budding artist is taken to another country where she earns her degree and assimilates – somewhat – into a new culture, gleaning from that perhaps more modern culture any qualities that might prove useful in future. Also typically, her family settles into a Diaspora community, which offers emotional and cultural support but also keeps alive an immutable yearning to someday return to the mother country.
If there is some success in the adopted land, it is often followed by a gradual return to the homeland. Once that transition has been made, there is a time spent searching for lost connections and renewing family memories and influences. Finally, with reinvigorated spirit and a rush of reawakened inspiration, there will be a sustained period of intense work and, eventually, success at home, bringing the personal odyssey full circle.
Because Cyprus is conservative, insular, and the intense social life with its numerous obligations is demanding, it is rare, if not impossible, to find an accomplished world-class artist who has not gone through such a convoluted journey as described above.
But Anita is back home now and at the apotheosis of her artistic development, doing the work she clearly was meant to do. And what fine work it is. One piece that is particularly moving is a triptych icon with exceptionally beautiful though typical images on the front. On the reverse side, which can be seen through a mirror placed behind it or by simply turning it round so that it becomes the focal point, she has sculpted and gilded an inscription of intertwined ancient Greek letters.
Not knowing what the letters actually spelled out, I was at first fascinated by the image. Then, the longer I gazed, the longer my eyes drifted across the finely articulated symbols, the sensations of the head and the heart coalesced and I experienced what can only be described as a moment of profound spiritual catharsis. Anita’s work is that powerful.
At present, her work can only be seen by appointment, but in the coming months Cyprus will be treated to a comprehensive showing of her work. Check gallery listings. You won’t want to miss it.
All images and original designs incorporated in the images are the copyrighted property of Anita Antoniades and are protected under international intellectual property law. None can be used without the written permission of Anita Antoniades.
