Light Water

at Kyklos Gallery

WHEN artist Keith Walker was loaned an underwater camera it provided him with his long-desired means to capture the play of sunlight through the seawater onto the body as source material for a series of paintings.

“Light Water” is an exhibition of the work made by the four artists that were involved in the project from the outset - Keith, Mary-Lynne Stadler, Raymond Wilson and Elizabeth Walker.

An original set of photographs taken in the Akamas in late 2007 was the point of inspiration for each artist.

Each enthused by separate aspects of those images, the artists have gone on to develop their own unique interpretatons. The result is a stunningly exciting visual display that beautifully illustrates the individuality of the artist’s crative process.

Keith Walker

For Keith it was the observtion of sunlight refrated through the agitated surface of the sea on the human form that inspired his series of paintings of that micro-second, a frozen moment captured initially on digital camera, when the patterns of light and shadow interplay. By superimposing layers of thin glazes in both acrylic and oil paints and using fluid brush marks, Keith successfully evokes the sensations of fleeting and ever-changing light and of weightlessness that so strikingly impressed him and motivated his original idea.

Mary-Lynne Stadler

At first fascinated by the bizarre and other-worldly forms that she saw in the photographs, Mary-Lynne’s mind turned to thoughts about the weird and wonderful life that inhabits our oceans. As she worked into the project other ideas associated with our many myths and metaphors of the sea insistently called for her attention. And so her canvases have become vibrant, colourful considerations of both life form and life force where reality is momentarily held in suspension and figures lide and float through an inner, secret and sometimes fantasy world.

Raymond Wilson

For Raymond the photographed undrwater figures seemed to exist outside of time and place. By assembling photographs and objects on painted board, Raymond has created a series of visually intriguing narrative images exploiting the weithtless aspect of the characters. His symbolic religious scenes reflect classical icon paintings and are at once real and yet unreal in their metaphysical landscapes.

Elizabeth Walker

By combining the underwater world with the human figure Elizabeth has created a series of photographic images with sculptural qualities the suggest a modern twist on Aprhodite. Though the human figure has been documented in so many ways through the centuries, it is rare to see it presented as two-dimensional, weightless sculpture. In her photographic handling of the images, Elizabeth emphasises the refracted sunlight moulding to the body as it moves unrestricted by gravity while the high contrast patterns of light through the water’s surface bestow on the suspended human figure a silent, weightless sculptural quality.

The exhibition will run from April 5 - April 28.

Gallery opening from 10.00 am - 1.00 p.m. & 4.00 pm - 7.00 pm. Closed Saturday afternoon and Sunday.

Exhibition showcases Texas

landscape painter Onderdonk

DALLAS (AP)

In a new exhibition of the work of Texas landscape painter Julian Onderdonk, a cavernous room holds variations on the subject matter for which he was best-known: bluebonnets.

The room, painted in a purplish-blue to complement the depictions of Texas' state flower, features about two dozen paintings of bluebonnets, from the flower interspersed with cacti in rough Hill Country terrain to lush fields in full bloom.

''They vary in size. They vary in mood. They vary in finish,'' said William Keyse Rudolph, curator of the exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art.

The exhibit ''Bluebonnets and Beyond: Julian Onderdonk, American Impressionist'' features more than 90 works. Following its Dallas run, which ends July 20, the show will tour other Texas towns, stopping at the Witte Museum in San Antonio from Sept. 18 through Jan. 11, 2009, and the Stark Museum of Art in Orange from Feb. 10 through May 24, 2009.

As the name of the exhibit implies, it looks at Onderdonk as more than just a man known for bluebonnets.

The works span his days as an art student in New York under famous teacher William Merritt Chase to his paintings exploring the landscape after returning home to Texas. And paintings done before he died at the age of 40 in 1922 following intestinal surgery hint at the direction his work might have taken.

''Dawn in the Hills,'' painted not long before he died, depicts the first rays of morning opening across a misty field with hills rising in the background. It has a more abstract quality than other works.

''He's starting to respond to abstraction,'' Rudolph said. ''It is much, much more evocative instead of descriptive.''

Some of his later works show signs of change. But others show him going back to something familiar, landscape scenes similar to what he learned from Chase.

''There's this sort of back and forth,'' Rudolph said.

Later in his life, Onderdonk also became increasingly busy organising art exhibitions for the Texas State Fair, which then included trips to New York to select art, Rudolph said.

Onderdonk was born in 1882 in San Antonio. His father, Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, was himself a working artist. Just before his 19th birthday, he went to New York City to study art. That summer, he studied with Chase, who had taught his father as well.

Chase, who also instructed such artists as Georgia O'Keeffe, had a summer school on New York's Long Island. The Dallas exhibit begins with a room comparing landscape works by Chase to Onderdonk's to show the teacher's influence.

''When you put them side by side, you see what Julian learned from his teacher,'' Rudolph said.

After the summer, Onderdonk lived and worked in New York City, painting city scenes and bucolic island views. In 1909, he moved back to San Antonio.

Onderdonk often did several paintings of the same scene from different perspectives. For example, in a series of paintings of the Guadalupe river, one work focuses on the river, one pans out to show the wider landscape and another puts the emphasis on cliffs over the river.

Rudolph sees Onderdonk's bluebonnets as an extension of his obsession with nature. And capturing the flowers in full bloom was a challenge. In bloom for only a few months each year, the flowers could have a good or bad year depending on conditions.

''They are sort of bound up in one artist's search in nature,'' he said.

''If you want to understand nature, something that's pretty, beautiful and uncertain is a great challenge,'' Rudolph said.

To complement the Onderdonk exhibit in Dallas, the Dallas Museum of Art has compiled an exhibit on another floor featuring nearly three dozen works by Julian's father.

Magical Space

Susan Kerr Joachim will exhibit a selection of her paintings at Opus 39 from Monday, April 7 at 7.30 pm to be opened by Michalakis Zambelas.

There will be a speech and analysis of the paintings by Dr Kleitos Ioannides.

The exhibition will include paintings recently exhibited at the 6th International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Florence, Italy, in December 2007.

Susan Kerr was selected and invited by the Internal Committee of the Florence Biennale to take part in the 6th edition of this exhibition and was awarded a certificate for her fine presentation and participation in this important event.

These paintings created great interest and favourable comment including “very substantial painting, commendable work, congratulations ……” by Matty Roca,member of AICA and president of Council for Arts, Cancun, Mexico, and “I really enjoy your work…” B. Malone, curator and representative of New York Arts Magazine.

Art historian Effi Strouza has said: “In her paintings, although the human figure prevails, it is positioned within the space, interwoven with its surroundings and combined to give a great variety of abstract elements. In addition, the broad range of colour contributes towards a lyrical atmosphere in all her works. “Magical space…”

The paintings on show at Opus Gallery are all about space, the illusion and depth of space, interior and exterior. Paintings from the 1970s are concerned with interior space, created by the intensity of colour. Landscapes are concerned with illusions of exterior space through colour, light and atmosphere. Certainly the landscape and the exceptional light of Cyprus has been a great inspiration.

The latest paintings, including those exhibited at the Biennale of Florence are concerned with universal space, cosmic space.

"In my paintings there has always been an investigation into the most essential elements which lie in the qualities of colour, light and space, through abstraction from natural phenomena," says Susan Kerr.

A long lasting interest in the Cosmos and the mysteries of the universe has evolved into these latest works on the theme ‘Nebulae – a search for the origins of life – from the stars’, a search for the magical and mysterious source of light and life in the deepest depths of space.

Zacharias Koumides

Apocalypse

A quietly moving exhibition in which a beautiful melancholy often rules. The artist also quite often "inserts " a second canvas within the larger one creating a mysterious dialogue.

It appears a palette knife has been used to create a seeming arithmetical "conversation" of surface textures all under aesthetic control, however.

A peaceful yet confident exhibition.

Stelios Votsis

at Opus 39

Many moons ago (colonial times, in fact) Stelios Votsis (ex Saint Martin’s – ex Sir John Cass – ex The Slade) taught painting at the Teachers’ Training College in the Morphou district. The principal (British) took us around while Stelios talked and talked and talked.

"Deeds NOT words, Mr Votsis," advised the principal, looking aside at some overworked palettes. Votsis (while certainly not giving up his gift of the gab) painted and drew.

And, of course, still is. Born in 1929 you can see his latest and still excellent work at Opus 39 until April 5.

Ashli Bolayir,

lithographic works

Opened yesterday.

Ashli Bolayir was born in Istanbul. He studied Fine Arts in Marseille (France) and lives and works in Barcelona (Spain).

Ashli notes:

“What does it mean to enlarge or reduce something? It’s just to set a distance between myself, others and the object.

By displacing the object there is a distance and closeness.

It is the traveling from one place to another.

It draws me to photographing the coffee remains or enlarging the weave of embroidering.

The banality of everyday life becomes my tool. By continuously magnifying the object I aim to reach the heart of its content.

Using the mixed medias of lithography, photography, collage and colour I explore the idea.

Reality is a matter of point of view.

The sequencing of groups of paintings or gradual revealing as in a Russian doll one arrives at different interpretations”.

Until April 9.

Amorgos Gallery Open Day

George Kotsonis, Andreas Charalambous, Nitsa Hadjigeorgiou, Andreas Makariou, George Gabriel, Panayiotis Larkos, Stefanos Nearchou, Alexis Hadjicosta, Maria Xadjidemetriou, Despina Antoniou, Katie Demoliou.

Until March 31.

Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre

Selections from the Marfin Laiki Bank collection in an exhibition entitled "Yours Sincerely". It continues until April 20. An exceptional standard. Here is a visual tribute to this country and must continue in its magnificent tracks. In its brilliant selections, it has a beautiful non-aggressiveness which surely must be due to Marina Vryonidou- Yiangou.

Exhibition

Snezana Nena Bujosevic has an exhibition at Martinis Club, Nicosia. On until April 26.