Open

Studios

The Open Studios, I recall were held inside the walled city of Nicosia, and, to this day, the group link their brushes and palettes with talent and purpose.

One day, hopefully, this excellent venture will spread over the old city with all participating. Meanwhile, Paphos has extended this vision and more than 40 artists from the Paphos region have agreed to open their studios and workplaces to the public during the first four weekends of September.

Not every single artist in the eastern end of the island is participating but there are talents galore, with the excellent illustrated guide of artists and locations saying that many of them enjoy an international reputation.

They also come from many ‘different backgrounds and cultures to make the event truly cosmopolitan’. Banners bearing the logo on a blue and yellow background will be hanging near the entrances to each artist’s own open studio. The artists include sculptors, potters, carvers, photographers, painters and represent a huge range of interests and styles of working. Artists from across the Paphos region are opening their studios to the public from 10am until 6 pm on the following dates:

2-3 September

9-10 September

16-17 September

23-24 September

As most artists are only opening their studios on certain weekends – allowing them for time to visit each other (some are opening every weekend) please check to see that each studio is open when you want to visit.

Website: www.openstudioscy.com

There is an excellent guide

Try the organisers

Nic Costa 26933356, Sue Harding 26221301, David Lester 26621130, Mary Beth Trotter 99752687, Marina Zach 99699380.

All success.

Remember, though, it’s only the 40 artists on the list who are opening their studios.

Freud and Bacon are unavailable.

was in the London Medea.

Yes, my dear

Saw an excellent interpretation of Euripides’ Medea at Droushia open air theatre in the summer.

This was performed by members of the International Summer Institute for Ancient Greek Drama and Theatre. Directed by workshop leaders Nicos Shiafkalis and Academic Chair Prof. Dr Heinze-Uwe Haus is now Faculty Director, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA, and will be remembered here for his brilliant productions for THOC.

I have seen many productions of Medea – including our own outstanding Jenny Gaitenopoulos and others here in Cyprus from Greece. The Workshop Medea, Jessica Dal Canton, who, of course is still a student, was completely original in her interpretation, sweeping the play with totally original gestures, clear and moving in voice and aims.

The production too, had a warm, sympathetic Nurse played by Marion Pascali Bembedelli played it here), a convincing Jason played by Eric Hilyard and an eloquent Messenger by Efthymios Shiafkalis.

Although I can’t get Jenny’s Medea with her feathered robes and plaintive voice out of my mind, I’ll tell you what? Jessica Dal Canton was more impressive and tragic than Diana Rigg

Orpheus Gallery’s

summer exhibition

Orpheus Gallery summer exhibition is on until September 30 in Limassol and features works by Colombian artist Luis Guzman and emerging Cypriot artist Alexis Vayianos alongside well-known Cypriot artists George Erotocritou, George Yerontides, Panicos Tsangaris and international artists Jeron Geronomides (Brazil), Miriam McConnon (Ireland) and many more.

The exhibition includes works of original paintings, original and limited edition sculpture and glass

Mon/Wed & Sat 10.00 -13.30.

Tues/ Thu & Fri 10.00 -13.00 & 17.00 – 19.00

Atomic Art from

New South Wales

Browsing through The Guardian last week I noticed Kaimaklesian- connected artist Nike Savvas adjusting her new work, Atomix – Full of Love, Full of Wonder for her exhibition at the New South Wales Gallery.

Billed as an Australian artist under the heading “Eye on the Ball ATOMIC ART IN SYDNEY” there was Nike surrounded by 50,000 polystyrene balls photographed by David Gray for Reuters.

Last saw Nike having coffee in Kaimakli Square.

The Spirit of Apollon

Alexandros Tasou presents his first personal exhibition of paintings, sculptures and artwork until 11th September at Kypriaki Gonia, Larnaca. The exhibition is titled “The Spirit of Apollon”.

Alexandros Tasou was born in Rizokarpaso in 1951.

"The environment", as he says, "affected my professional career. My village is near Ayios Philonas, the Temple of Apollon. My family had fields in the area and as a little boy I used to clean these antiquities. I also watched my father making shoes, and my grandfather playing the violin, and repairing pocket watches. I liked what he was doing, and I messed about in his boxes in order to help him. My family’s work, my father as a shoemaker, my grandfather as a watch repairer, the ancient Temple of Apollon, the history of my village and the ancient Greek spirit; all these affected my life.

In 1968 Alexandros went to Israel to study, where he stayed for two years. He then went to London where he lives and works to this day.

"In England I started working with my hands making small items (I Iiked working with my hands) jewellery, handbags, sunglasses, watches and from 1968, I started to make unusual objects.

"Before 1987, only very few persons knew about my work. In 1987 I bought all the old telephones in Cyprus and I used the receivers in making handbags.

"These handbags with telephone receiver were seen all over the world. I appeared in many television shows, and thee handbags and my name were shown in international magazines. I travelled to New York, throughout America Tokyo, Paris, Germany, Switzerland and South Africa. These handbags gave me my first financial help. In Japan I sold half a million handbags, and I used this money to purchase machinery for making watches. I used the same machinery for making sunglasses.

"The Besancon museum in France displays my whole watch collection. Swiss watch magazines and television programmes said that ‘Alexandros Tasou brought watch design to its highest level’. My exhibitions were visited by ‘specialists’ in order to see something special and rare, and ask me for help which has nothing to do with my work; for example, video clips with Michael Jackson, Natalie Call, Anita Becar and many London musicians who made the video clips. I was asked to make costumes and dresses for artists, among others Anna Vissi, and, Pierre Cardin (who helped Alexandros with his first exhibition) has a collection of items".

Video clips of television worldwide interviews are show during the exhibition.

Museum explores pirates

in pop culture

NEWPORT NEWS (AP)

Long before Errol Flynn buckled on a sword or Johnny Depp sailed the Caribbean, the popular image of the pirate has been of a dashing rogue fighting for love, redemption or adventure even as he seeks fortune.

A new exhibition at The Mariners' Museum uses artifacts, images and costumes to examine how literature and film have transformed the brutal thieves and murderers of the high seas into legendary icons.

"As you see the different artifacts we have on display, it's almost stunning to realise how much the romanticised pirate has permeated society, culture," said Marc Nucup, curator of "Swashbuckler: The Romance of the Pirate," which nearly doubled museum attendance during its opening weekend in July.

"When you hear the word 'pirate' or you see imagery that invokes the pirate, you're not thinking the real individual - Blackbeard or Bartholomew Roberts," Nucup said. "You're thinking what has come out of movies, what has come out of books." The nautical museum is exploring pirates in popular culture at a time when pirates seem to be more popular than ever.

Golden age

Sports teams have pirate mascots, advertisers use pirates to make products such as beer or rum seem exotic and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," starring Depp, has earned more than $370 m so far this summer.

The museum plans to keep the display up through summer 2007 for the expected release of the next movie in the "Pirates" franchise.

Before the romance of pirates there was, of course, the reality. An early Dutch book, "Buccanieers of America," by Alexander Exquemelin, recounted stories of pirates operating in the mid-17th century and was "designed to shock the genteel reader with true exploits of cruelty, thievery," Nucup said. The exhibition includes a 1684 English translation of the book.

The golden age of piracy on the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea ended around 1730, as colonial governments became more organised and were able to suppress pirate activity, Nucup said.

Pirate tales, however, continued to be written - and increasingly embellished. They also were wildly popular, featuring anti-heroes living outside the constraints of civilisation.

In 1814, Lord Byron's poem, "The Corsair," about a pirate captain, sold out its entire run of 10,000 copies in London in one day. And by 1822, when Sir Walter Scott came out with his novel, "The Pirate," pirates were becoming legendary characters, Nucup said.

"They are not just necessarily villains," he said.

"They could be disgraced noblemen. They could be driven to piracy just by circumstance. This is where the romanticism starts coming out of it." Romanticised pirates made for great subjects in paintings as well, and the show includes early 20th-century buccaneer-themed works by Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth.

The tradition of swashbuckling pirates carried over easily into movies, essentially escapist fantasies. "Captain Blood," a 1935 film starred Errol Flynn, who epitomised the gentleman pirate - a man of breeding, charm and polish.

The show contrasts that Hollywood image with that of a real gentleman who made a lousy pirate. In 1717, Stede Bonnet left a respectable life in Barbados to cruise the east coast of the American colonies. The next year, he was captured by South Carolina authorities and hanged.

Black pirate

Douglas Fairbanks Sr's title character in the 1926 film "The Black Pirate" became the basis of the movie pirate charming and athletic. He's a nobleman seeking to avenge the death of his father.

The real Black Pirate, Bartholomew Roberts, earned the nickname "Black Bart" because he captured slave ships. He was gutted by a cannonball while trying to escape a British navy warship in 1722, and his body was thrown into the sea.

The exhibition also features weapons. Nucup explained that movies tend to show pirates using rapiers in drawn-out sword fights modelled after the sport of fencing, while in reality, cutlasses, axes and knives were more practical.

Hollywood also tends to ignore reality when designing pirate costumes - mostly military-style coats with heavy embroidery. Real pirates wore whatever clothing they could find - usually made of plain wool or linen - and often couldn't be distinguished from common sailors, Nucup said.

Pirate movies also get it wrong when it comes to mode of transportation, often featuring large, three-masted vessels. Most real pirates had small ships that could get away quickly, he said.

The exhibition finishes with examples of modern-day pirates, such as terrorists who were chased off the coast of Somalia early this year by the guided missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill.

Interspersed throughout the displays are activities for children, as well as adults who are game. Visitors can clamour about a pirate ship set and watch their antics on camera. They also can make pirate flags and hats and try to decipher a pirate code hidden throughout the exhibition test.

Arrivals

THE works of two Cypriot artists, Christodoulos Panayiotou and Nicos Charalambides have drawn considerable interest in exhibitions in Britain as part of the “Arrivals” series, along with artists from 10 new members of the European Union.

Panayiotou’s “Truly” series was opened at the Modern Art Gallery, in Oxford by Niki Katsiaouni, cultural officer at the Cyprus High Commission. The work “Truly” clinched the Deste first prize in Athens last year.

On September 5, Panayiotou will “stage” a discussion with four leading intellectuals from Oxford, introduced by Margaret Robb Tufnell of Turner Contemporary, and Suzanne Cotter, a senior member of Modern Art Oxford.

As from July 28, painter Nicos Charalambides shows at the Turner Contemporary, Margate, with a mixed show including installations on site, video, posters and banners dealing with the present situation in Cyprus.

This exhibition too, was opened by Katsiaouni.

World’s largest

painting

STOCKHOLM (AP)

It may not be the world's greatest artwork, but a Swedish man's 8,000-sq.m painting is definitely the biggest.

David Aberg said he spent 2 1/5 years and 100 tons of paint to complete his work, titled "Mother Earth" inside an aircraft hangar in Angelholm, southern Sweden.

Guinness World Records in London confirmed it was the world's largest painting done by a lone artist, more than twice as big as the previous record holder.

Aberg's painting depicts a woman holding a peace sign.

"The idea was to do something for peace," Aberg said.

"This is a peace painting that symbolises the world with the woman as its symbol." He completed the painting at the end of June and Guinness approved the record last week.