Kiss Me If U Dare

Marina Zervou is at Argo Gallery.

These are brilliant drawings with surprising subjects. Often of children who can appear in distress. I would say. But I may be wrong. For some reason at the opening I gained the impression that the artist was dealing with traumatic happenings although I also noticed that the crowd of visitors was a happy throng. Do visit. But I would not take a sensitive very young child of mine. Brilliant work, though.

This is what organisers had to say about Kiss Me If U Dare:

"Marina Zervou has always been seeking a more straightforward and abrupt form of expression, therefore her work is mostly drawing. Drawing is immediate and enables her to produce a fresh, rough and unpolished result that other artistic means might sometimes lack. Her drawings are mainly about the human figure.

“For the artist the body is the vehicle and the mirror, on which the complexities of the human psychic are reflected and presented, as well as the projection of internal states.

“Thoughts and feelings are revealed through the body; they are expressed in the eyes, in the hands; a whole world is hidden in the gestures and movements of the body. By drawing the human figure she attempts to approach and comprehend what lies beyond what we see (or what we might think we see), what lies beyond appearance.

“Her reference point is the individual, herself, in juxtaposition with the ordinary and the outside world. In her work she tries to address issues concerning life and death, isolation and loss, and answer questions relating to who we are, what we are and what we are made of (exploring the matter from which we are made of).

“Her work is figurative, not realistic. She uses reality but manipulates it. Her intention is not to produce a realistic imitation of the human figure but to pictorially reinvent the human body, find her own figure, the mirror of her comprehensive reality.

“Therefore, the figures are simplified and often distorted/ disjointed. Sometimes limbs are not attached to the body, as if thy are parts of broken dolls or puppets, which they seem to have been violently pulled apart resulting in an awkward and uncomfortable posture and feeling. Technical issues, like human anatomy, are deliberately ignored in order for the attention to be focused on the subject matter. The figures are usually placed in an empty, white background as if they are floating in a void, in emptiness, in non-space. They exist somewhere but nowhere in particular.

“Furthermore, the fabrication of ‘just another beautiful picture’ was not amongst her intentions. Her images sometimes look like caricatures with intensive grotesque elements, elements which, however, she deliberately adopted elements of sarcasm, ridiculousness and childish naivety on order to provoke and challenge the general view regarding what is beautiful an true. By provoking but not scorning the aesthetics of the common viewer, she tries to engage him/her in further dialogue and share with him/her anxieties and concerns”.

Continuing until 23rd February.

Feryal Sukan

Feryal Sukan’s exhibition at Diachroniki Ledra continues until February 27.

Organisers say Feryal is a natural, sincere artist whose passion for art and life is portrayed in a poignant and direct manner.

In her current theme she draws the viewer into the deeper world of the feminine psyche, with flowing female forms, in alluring muted tones of colour and texture.

Her sad and tormented women, rendered in a subtle and at times emotionally provocative manner, create feelings of empathy, despair, and a resolve to face adversity with courage and determination.

Laura J. Padgett

at Pharos The Pharos Centre for Contemporary Art is presenting new work by artist/photographer Laura Padgett.

Laura J. Padgett is an artist/photographer who also works in the field of art history

Throughout the years she has combined these two areas in her work: writer and curator.

The Pharos Centre for Contemporary Art is at 24 Demosthenis Severis Avenure, Nicosia.

Nicholas Ladommatos, Gloria Gallery

This superb debut continues until tomorrow. Note how in the totally non-figurative paintings, the tension is solidly wedged onto the canvas in a great stillness.

However, when the artist applies a recognisable image - such as the doves - they appear to be pulling the forms to and fro.

In other words, Nicholas has new surprises in reserve.

Great painting.

Archive in

sidestreet

There is a very interesting exhibition in sidestreet in north Nicosia (opposite what I remember as the Law courts) which is showing an archive of work created during the last 25 years.

Mychael Barratt etchings at Gallery K

The directors of Gallery K open this winter season presenting for the first time a major exhibition of the painter and printmaker Mychael Barratt, whose work style could be best described by the term "Neosymbolism".

Mychael Barratt was born in Toronto, Canada. He studied art at the Symposium School of Art, Winnipeg and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax.

He arrived in London in 1984 and started his career as a freelance illustrator, while studying etching at central St Martin’s School of Art.

He became a full-time printmaker in 1991 and almost immediately took up commissions for Liberty on Regent Street.

His Shakespeare prints were the inspiration for a storewide show in Liberty, for which he also did the window display. He is a member of several art associations in Britain and Canada, among which the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.

Mychael’s art has a unique character, emerging from the creative blend of Victorian Symbolism and the Modernism of Chagall, Degas and Lautrec.

His work features a sparkle of life fed by influences from fairy tales and sagas, Mediaeval festivals and Shakespearian dramas, as well as famous paintings of the Great Masters and the 1960s pop culture.

In his etchings and paintings there is a harmonious duality of the precision of drawing and sketching and the expressive character of painting. Recreation of old stories meet pictorial innovation, tradition is juxtaposed with modernism.

He searches his themes in Macbeth and The Tempest, Goya and De Chirico, Klimt and Manet, the bars, the buildings and the streets that bear a reminiscence of the character of old London.

Romanticism meets a sharp, sometimes sarcastic, humour and creates an enchanting magic that is rare contemporary art.

Mychael’s work is currently exhibited in over 30 galleries throughout the UK, and also in Canada and the USA, Sydney, Auckland and Nicosia.

During the past year he has shown work in group exhibitions in Gallery K and has been selected to make a print on their behalf for the Hampstead and Highgate Festival featuring the unique character of the Hampstead Village.

Continuing art events

Christodoulos Kodjapashis (Christos Eleftheriades) Kypriaki Gonia, Larnaca. On until February 22.

Christodoulos Kodjapashis was born in Mammari on the 28th October 1926 and died on the 6th of November 1988, at the age of 62. He completed only the first three years of Primary School.

The book "Mammari, my village", published by the local Council of Mammari has this to say about the artist: "Great achievements by a simple man from our village. Paintings with live colours and bright faces. A quiet contribution from a simple man from our village, to the cultural heritage of our country."

Andrew Efstathiou’s exhibition opened on Tuesday February 5, at Gallery Morphi, Limassol. Highly imaginative figurative paintings encompassing crowd scenes and movement. It continues until February 29.

Technis Dromena Gallery (Strovolos) and the Haemophilia Society is staging a painting, ceramic and mosaic exhibition. Net profits will be given to the Cyprus Haemophilia Society. On until February 22.

Aspelia Gallery Larnaca has an exhibition of ceramics by Sevcan Cerkez titled Reflections that continues until March 5.

"The gallery will be filled with figures of human proportions, human in more than just their size, they are figures moulded from the realities of Cyprus. Sevcan’s purpose is to immortalise the Cypriot, who through misfortune and hardship has held on to dignity”.

Yves Klein, too

There is certainly a lot going on. You can even, quite casually, by-pass a Dali mix just off Hippocrates Street, Nicosia.

Stroll past the Ledra Palace Hotel and discover a wonderful archive of art created up north since the last quarter of a century.

Only the other week I saw a beautiful blue (of course) Yves Klein bedside sculpture in the Constantinos Taliotis curated "bedroom" at The Power House.

This was of President Makarios and had been inspirationally created by Vaso and Charalambos Sergiou.

Hope he’s watching this weekend.

Antonopoulos

The Pegasus ART Foundation presents an exhibition by Angelos Antonopoulos which continues until February 26.