When the lights went out in Nicosia

REMEMBER the confusion in the Nicosia Moat a month ago when the lights fused and all was dark during Urban Soul?

Well, Sasha Savic has kindly sent in notes in on ‘Draginja’s Garden,’ a site-specific installation at Urban Soul, with used cartridges by Tatiana Ferahian (who by the way also had a remarkable piece in last year’s Urban Soul). The Arts Page also includes Sasa’s own piece Volvo.

Draginja’s garden

Draginja’s garden was a site-specific installation, made up of hundreds of used cartridges gathered from the fields of Cyprus, with each piece cut and shaped into a flower.

The work represents the seductive power of hunting for killing but at the same time encourages the viewer towards disabling thoughts of war.

Moreover, the work pays tribute to those who die in battles all over the world, whose souls are not laid to rest, their bodies blown to pieces by ceaseless shellfire and the fragments scattered or entombed in the broken soil left behind. It honours those who so fearlessly laid down their lives in the hope that such violence and atrocities cease to exist in the future. It represents hope, freedom, and rebirth.

Lefkara inspiration

RESTRAINED, most beautiful, paintings inspired by Lefkara, from Lefteris Olympios, at Gloria’s.

Upstairs there are portraits of the inhabitants and views of the surroundings.

In the downstairs section at Gloria’s there are several paintings of women, under the heading of Our Lady of Beauty (Panayia tis Omorfias) which are quite remarkable for their simplicity and purity.

Number 4 - St Maria (oil on canvas, fabric, thread) - is partly covered.

A most remarkable work.

Do not miss it.

Thru Chords and Chorus

THE Marfin Laiki Bank Cultural Centre is this year marking 25 years of contributing to the cultural and social life of Cyprus.

The Centre has chosen to celebrate ‘Thru Chords and Chorus,’ with the presentation of an exhibition, a publication and a children’s educational programme on the evolutionary history of entertainment and recreation in Cyprus.

This massive exhibition was inaugurated on Tuesday, November 4, by President Christofias.

Exhibition full of secret themes

ELIZABETH Hoak Doering has an original exhibition at the Panth-eon Gallery called Explication de Texte, containing an amazing amount of "secret themes."

Here is the informative introduction to a refreshingly original show.

"The explication de texte is a formal method of understanding a poem or piece of prose.

It is a common way that students of (usually French) literature analyse an author’s choice of symbolic details, use of structure, and method of writing, to find embedded meanings and to establish broad themes in the whole of a text. The practice of explication de texte is explicitly not post modern.

Its formalistic base theoretically constrains the reader to look at the text without broadening the interpretation of the work to the biography of the author or the location of the text in the historical time or place in which it was created.

The work must only be analysed using what is written into the work itself. In effect, the author’s situation is somewhat irrelevant

Explication de texte, as an exhibition, asks that the viewer look at the drawings and installation as stories/texts. Viewers are invited into the method of explication de texte by using one of the lenses available, through which to examine and interpret details of each drawing, and to perceive them as stories.

Marks in these drawings are usually intended to describe action, and less frequently to describe the actors. Details are essential; the small marks and the large, the way the marks are made, and the aesthetic choices taken/not taken.

For now, formalism is out of fashion and, in the end, viewers will invariably take away a post-modern understanding of the works on (out of) context. In this sense, explication de texte is a paradox."

You may be baffled by all the artspeak and even consider that the lenses provided are merely fun. Even wonder whether the works on display are taking a line for more than a walk - but a joyful tease, and that those hints of tattoos near the crotch on one delightful piece are merely a passing fancy.

However, these beautiful and sometimes threatening drawings are brilliant.

Do not miss this superb exhibition.

Renos Pericleous at Orosimo

RENOS Pericleous is yet another original talent.

Renos, at Orosimo Gallery, Strovolos, follows the painterly richness of the best of Cypriot canvas artists and this new gallery was packed for the opening.

Memories of Christoforos Savva came to mind. It will continue until November 8.

Orosimo Gallery is at 4 Iosif Hadjiosif Avenue, Acropolis.

Great colour, beautifully applied paint.

Do not miss this life-enriching exhibition.

Sophia Hadjipapa-Gee

I AM acquainted with Sophia’s paintings from her last exhibition.

Excellent.

Here is a preview sent for her exhibition at Opus 39, which opened on Monday at 7.30pm and continues until the 22nd which has been sent in to the Arts Page.

Beautiful Strange Homeland is the first part of a larger research under the title Obsessive Patterns and deals with the existence of delusive attitudes towards feelings, situation, and experiences that create some kind of pattern of behaviour.

The frailty of human perception and knowledge, which endures despite all training, as presented in her previous work, is examined here, not only on a personal level but through investigating whole system of social behaviour.

"I have become increasingly interested in patterns as a way to visually express routine behaviours, unexamined preconceptions, or, what is most difficult, the disparity between the truth "taken" by the heart and that ‘taken’ by reason on the basis of fact," she says.

Eleni Barron’s Kinderland

ELENI Barron’s show, Kinderland, is on at Argo Gallery.

And what a splendid show it is.

Inspired by children’s art this exhibition is joyous and chock-full of imagination.

It continues until the 15th of the month so you do have time.

There are many paintings and a few sculptures.