WHEN, as babies, we first ham fistedly scribble a circle and two sticks the irresistible process begins. We know it is Mummy. Or, perhaps Daddy. We are too young to know that it is also figurative art at its most direct. In the hands of a mature artist the figure becomes a subject so potent that you could say it has been the greatest vessel of thought and ideas in the history of world art. From the earliest prehistoric cave paintings, through the civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Assyria and onwards, a wealth of different human figures in art reflected the urge to reproduce the divine in human form. In more recent centuries, the artist’s relationship to the figure has become ever more complex, and art movements have in turn embraced and rejected it. But even repudiating the figure implies a relationship to it.
Certainly the human figure is alive and kicking in contemporary Cypriot art. Today sees the opening of Ebb and Flow, the first of a series of annual exhibitions in which groups of artists will come together to show their different approaches to the figure. This year, Nicosia-based artists Asik Mene, Christina Lambrou, Lia Voyiatsi and Nicholas Panagyi, who share the opinion that the figure can present itself both as “new” and “timeless”, are showing very different collections of work at the Studio Gallery, an attractive old house within the city walls. This highly recommended show will remain open every evening and Sunday mornings until December 7.
The Studio Gallery doubles as a working space for Nicholas Panagyi, whose idea it was to create this exhibition. As he says: “It is primarily an artistic collaboration but it is also more than that because it arises out of what feels like a new spirit of co-operation within the community of artists.” Partly, this comes from the post April 23 (when crossings were opened, allowing free movement over the Green Line) atmosphere that means artists from all over Cyprus, who had already enjoyed a good level of communication north and south, could much more easily meet and show their work.
More than anything, this enhanced sense of community has grown out of the extraordinary success of the Open Studios project last year, in which participating artists within the walled city opened their working studios to the public for one week in mid May. Next April they will do it again – joined by Turkish Cypriot artists this time. As Nicholas Panagyi says, the necessity to meet and co-operate in order to turn a dream into reality means that new artistic relationships are forging and ideas are flowing. We can expect more of these satellite projects, such as this Ebb and Flow exhibition, both within and without the walls of the old city.
Asik Mene
Born Larnaca in 1955. Graduate of Istanbul State Fine Art Academy, from the studio of Neset Gunal
“Whenever I feel the figure I propel myself into that non-dimensional and timeless hell in which plastic transformation happens. I begin by producing something realistic and then I melt it away. While the efforts of deformation are coming to the end of their adventure and arriving at the point where they become unbearable, there is a sensation like flying. Then I recapture the original state of my work, which has by now been transformed from the objective reality into the painter’s reality. By this process, reality is carried into a new dimension. The experience of living through this hellish adventure, absorbing all the dirt and residue of time, then gives rise to an ecstasy that has the characteristics of birth, growth and exhaustion simultaneously.”
Christina Lambrou
Born 1977 in Nicosia. Graduate of Florence Academy of Fine arts and University College, London
“The negative and positive space of the body and the continuous renegotiation with the negative and positive space of the surroundings is the initial stimuli for this work. The continuous play between the two and three dimensions is a visual metaphor of such concepts as “Belonging – not Belonging” of a local identity which is daily re-negotiated. The balancing of negative and positive spaces as a visual desire remains liquidly indefinable. This play – a hide and seek of space – creates a continuous movement towards domination. The embodiment of one space into the other (positive and negative) gives place to the work of art itself.”
Lia Voyiatsi
Born 1970 in Nicosia. Graduate of Scuola di Belle Arte e Arti ornamentali, Rome, Italy
“Having in mind the course and evolution of art until today I strongly and consciously felt the need to approximate closely the work with honesty and directness but without evasions or moral pretensions. The models appearing on the paintings are voluntarily participating accepting to “Expose” themselves and take their share of the liability in this work. Executed in a highly realistic style and technique this work consciously avoids the use of abstracted or expressionistic manners.”
Nicholas Panagyi
Born 1961, Nicosia. Graduate of Prague Academy of Fine Arts
“The internal struggle undergone by each one of us is the main source of inspiration that motivates creation. The work overflows with impulsive emotionalism. At the same time harmony and balance are evident in the composition and the contrasts between lines and surfaces, colour and texture. The figure, which is seen in motion, reflects knowledge of the human anatomy and the ability to capture movement.”
Ebb and Flow is on at the STUDIO GALLERY, 65 Pericleous Street, Nicosia from today until December 7. Opening hours: Monday to Saturday, 18.00 – 21.00, Sunday 10.00 – 13.00, and 18.00 – 21.00.
