Dominos everywhere

Jose Patricio at Pharos

Centre for Contemporary Art

Jose Patricio’s exhibition at Pharos Centre for Contemporary Art opened last Friday and often left me unmoved but it may have been the intention.

I hear that the artist will exhibit similar work at The Power House; but ON THE FLOOR. Having seen images of these in a catalogue it appears that they certainly look impressive when laid out in a huge space like a carpet.

At the Pharos Centre some gave the appearance that you could add to them yourself. The large black and white one in fact had had (at the gallery) assistance from helpers (artists, I believe) who helped place the domino pieces in their places.

Maybe my preference was the extremely beautiful No 4 (Puzzle 111, 2006) because it was in superb colour and the eye could wander in continuous delight.

The blurb announces "The body of work entitled Arts Combinatorial is based on the utilisation of domino pieces displayed directly on the floor of the exhibition space, or even on the walls, in the manner of paintings-objects, always taking into account their interrelation with the architecture that "welcomes" or "hosts" these works." The Power House awaits.

The Brazilian artist Jose Patricio was born in Recife, Brazil in 1960 and graduated in Social Studies at the Federal University of Pernambuco in 1982. Parallel to this, he studied at the Escolhina de Arts do Recife from 1976 to 1980. Jose Patricio currently lives and works in Recife.

Completing the Circle

Judith Constantinou at Kyklos Gallery, Paphos

This exhibition entitled "Completing the Circle" will be opened by Maurice Hassall, the renowned chef/hotelier/ author at 7.00pm, Friday, September 26 and will continue until October 10.

Judith was born in Surrey and as the daughter of an architect was exposed to drawing and painting from childhood. She graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture, London University with Distinction. Judith relocated to Cyprus in 1961, where she married Costas a talented violinist.

The simple beauty of the landscape combined with the quality of the light inspired her to start painting in oils. In 1967 she held her first solo exhibition in Famagusta at the Lykeon Ellinidon associated with the godfather of Cyprus’s much-loved artist Thraki Rossidou-Jones.

In 1972 Judith and Costas moved to South Africa where she embraced water colours as her favourite medium which has been her passion ever since.

She held numerous well-received exhibitions.

The wild dramatic splendour of the landscape inspired many paintings that now hang in Japan, South Africa and across Europe.

Judith, Costas and their two daughters returned to their beloved Cyprus in 2000 and from her studio base in Tala her work continues to evolve. Judith’s art classes at the studio provide the stimulus so essential to the creative process.

Visitors are always welcome at the studio by appointment.

This water-colour exhibition is an opportunity to see the full range of her work.

Writings on the wall

"A wall has always been the best place to publish your work" Banksy

Alexis Michaelides has been lecturing at Nicholas Panayi’s studio. Here is an account of his course.

Graffiti of many different forms have been around since the beginning of mankind. Early man even anticipated the stencil and spray technique blowing coloured powder through hollow bones around his hand to create its silhouette.

In ancient Greece you will find messages written on pottery, in ancient Pompeii you will even find election slogans on walls. It as only in the 1970s that this tradition began to be accepted as a legitimate art form, often referred to as Street Art.

This change was brought about by the work of artists such as Blek Le Rat, Banksy, The London Police, Microbo, KRSN, AKROE, Wet Shame and many more.

Street Art has often been wrongly linked with anarchy and vandalism. This is due to the fact that Street Art is work that is created (often without permission) in an open public space, where it is easy for the general public to view and comment upon.

Banksy, a famous graffiti artist, said: " Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place".

Street Art can be anything from scratching, stenciling, spray painting, drawing and painting, to create street installations. Also, Street Art can be the inspiration for other types of creation.

This course will concentrate on the styles and techniques of contemporary urban Street Art, and examine the work of leading artists in the field. It will involve the teaching of many techniques including stencils, paint applications, ink, sprays, logos and typography.

All these techniques will be used to create paintings on canvas, board, wood and other media. This course is addressed to people who are looking for something different.

And who are interested in freely expressing themselves, as well as wanting to learn more about the subject. It can be helpful to people preparing their portfolio for university but also to people who simply want to enjoy and freely express themselves.

"For me graffiti has always been a personal expression of who I am".

The table top

schools of art

Michael Paraskos has completed Part Two of The New Aesthetics. It is published by the Orange Press in association with the Cyprus College of Art.

"A controversial book, the Table Top Schools of Art strips away the pretence that conceptualism and aesthetic art can co-exist, and argues for a radical new ideal for 21st century art to replace the tired conceptualism of the last century."

Stavri Perikleous

Technotropio Art Club presents "Dynami Psihis" the first solo exhibition by Stavri Perikleous which will be opened by the actress Sofia Kalli at the premises of Strovolos Municipal Hall on Monday, September 22 at 7:00 p.m.

The exhibition will remain open until September 26.

Here is a real discovery. Stavri’s paintings are outstanding. Do go.

US artist finds niche with outdoor sculptures

YELLOW SPRINGS (AP)

A towering sculpture called Wind Dragon at Olympic Park in Beijing is his. So is a 10-storey stainless steel sculpture embedded with lights in Brisbane, Australia.

All the world's a stage for sculptor Jon Barlow Hudson.

His work can be seen in 23 countries, from Indonesia to Egypt. Fellow artists and art experts describe Hudson's work as visionary and culture-spanning because he is able to skilfas into sculptures that have broad appeal.

"I wanted to either leave a bit of myself there or share a bit of myself in different places," said the soft-spoken, 62-year-old Hudson, who makes his home in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It's a village in southwestern Ohio that has attracted numerous artists.

A Hudson sculpture was honoured last year by Beijing's Ministry of Construction. In 2005, Hudson won first prize in an international sculpture competition in Taizhou, China.

Hudson has flourished in the arena of public outdoor sculpture, an incredibly challenging thing to do, said Jane A. Black, executive director of the Dayton Visual Arts Centre.

"Not only do you have to be visionary and be able to take an idea and create it in a way that is readable to a wide variety of people, but you have to be able to deal with scale that many people cannot conceive of," Black said.

And it's got to last.

"The damn thing can't fall down," Black said. "It can't have anything falling off of it. It can't fall apart."

The Brisbane sculpture, erected for World Expo '88, looks like a stack of cubes reaching to the sky. It was built in Dayton, Ohio, in seven sections, shipped to Australia, and assembled there. It took 60 workers about five months to produce.

Hudson's sculptures are born in a barnlike studio filled with marble, granite, steel and the tools of his trade - hammers, chisels, grinders and sanders.

His cat Pistol, a black, yellow-eyed Bombay Burmese, prowls outside around boulder-sized stones waiting to become art.

Apreciate

"I can't imagine doing anything else," said the white-haired, walrus-moustached Hudson. "I try to appreciate it as much as I can."

Hudson took his first steps toward a sculpting career as a child when he built small forts in the desert sands of Saudi Arabia, where his family lived while his hydro-geologist father worked for an oil company.

The family later lived in Jordan, France, Bolivia, Ecuador and other countries. During that time, Hudson was able to visit the Acropolis in Greece, the prehistoric Stonehenge monument in England, and Machu Picchu, a pre-Columbian Inca site in Peru.

Hudson later studied at the Dayton Art Institute, the Kunst Akademy in Stuttgart, Germany, and the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles before moving to Yellow Springs in the mid-1970s to begin his professional career as a sculptor.

And there were other life experiences that shaped his art.

A motorcycle accident in Vermont that sent him tumbling into a pile of rocks injected a spherical quality into his sculptures, which had been more linear until then.

"Your awareness somehow becomes centered," he said of the accident. "You're almost unconnected from your body.

You're like the hub of a wheel. Your body is tumbling around outside of the centre".

Golden

Inside the studio, Hudson lifts the wraps off of a relief carving of white, blue-veined Italian marble featuring precise circles designed to emulate ripples on a pond.

His sculpture outside city hall in Taizhou is a golden steel ribbon that seems to twirl in circles to form a globe. In Milwaukee, he created "Compass," a circular stainless steel tube bristling with granite blocks designed to marry square and round.

In Aswan, Egypt, he carved a circular hole framed by a square into a massive piece of granite. And in Jakarta, Indonesia, there sits a Hudson sculpture that looks like a golden steel ribbon that was bent into a circle by a muscular god.

Classical

Artibell, cultural art superintendent for the Dayton suburb of Kettering, calls Hudson's work universal because it takes a classical approach and is not confined to images or icons familiar only to Americans.

"He works with forms, shapes, negative space so well that I think it relates to a lot of different cultures," she said.

But not all of Hudson's works are large and outdoor. And some are whimsical.

He once made a sculpture out of 90 white, grey and blue fur felt hats. He hung them from a ceiling at nearby Antioch College like a cluster of grapes.

"A sculpture is something that somehow embodies an idea or a feeling or some essence of our experience that we want to give a form to share," Hudson said. "The whole package is just great fun."