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all times, a rigorous confrontation of the art-
ist with matter. Inflicting circular revolving
punctuations upon his simple, silver-coloured
aluminium, the artist recalls a rippled surface
of water, quivering at the throw of a pebble.
Sea, thus, becomes the eye of the universe or
that votive-eye on silver-coated icons of Greek
Orthodox saints, weeping for the bloodshed
of the world and for that red, human liquid,
between the soul and the flesh, loaded with
sadness and gushing through countless, tiny
wounds on the perforated metal.
Of Valentinos Charalambous’s work, the curator
writes:
...through his academic indulgence in the craft
of his father and forefathers, traditional potters
in Famagusta, he becomes a pioneer Cypriot
ceramist, through his exhaustive research in
the ability of clay to transcribe phonemes with
plastic prosody, capturing thus a visual depic-
tion of the liquidity and flow of language. His
work, ‘Rhythms from the Arab World’, trans-
lates the vowels and in particular the liquid
consonants of the Arabic script, correspond-
ing to -l and -r, in sculptural-ceramic volumes,
infused with the pulse of fire and the vigour of
sea-water, in an upward elongation that repro-
duces the rhythm of the waves.
Analysing Stass Paraskos’s work, Dr Anax-
agorou writes:
(he is) an exponent par excellence of aca-
demic naive painting in Cyprus, recording
life in the Cypriot countryside, celebrating
traditions and rituals, moments of pleas-
ure and sorrow, relaxation and work. In his
typical abstract representational approach,
he captures the peak and soul of summer at
any Mediterranean sea-shore, delineating an
endless rhythmical multiplication of bath-
ing figures that develop an exciting play, set
against shimmering yellow and blue voids of
the sand and the sea.
Angelos Makrides, Lacrima Maris
Nitsa Hadjigeorgiou, Mare Nostrum II
Painting by Susan Vargas