Eleni Mavrou

Born in Nicosia in 1996 to a Cypriot father and a Catalan mother, she spent her childhood between Cyprus and Spain. She studied at the Escola Joso School of Art: Center de Còmic i Arts Visuals in Barcelona. It started with the use of traditional techniques and materials and reached digital art. Her works are based on the investigation of gender identity. Previous activities: International exhibition on autism (Io Dico Autismo, e tu ?, Passignano sul Trasimeno) https://iodicoautismo.upnec.eu/

​

​

​

Portraits, 2021

 

The work explores Cypriot identity through personal imagery and experiences shared by all native ethnolinguistic communities of the Island  and their role as the creators of contemporary Cypriot culture, while being critical of expected Cyrpiot gender roles.

 

The blend of graphic, naturalistic and symbolic elements are used to express Cypriot femininity as a joyful, defiant force and carrier of culture through generations by (the cypriot femme's invisible) social and biological reproduction and Cypriot masculinity  as a tender and loving experience rejecting the militarization and “depersonalization” of the cypriot man.

​

​

​

​

​

 

Salomi Abdou

Lebanese Cypriot artist born in Paphos in 1998. She studied Fine Arts and Critical Practice (2017-19) in Brighton, England where she participated in organized exhibitions from 2017 to 2020. In 2019 she completed a short course by UCL on Art therapy for people with Dementia.  She is currently studying Anthropology and Media at Sussex University, England. Her work is based on the observation and recording of the human form and the way it is placed within the context of digital reality and in extension within the online cyberspace.

www.lazyzoot.com

​

​

​

‘Kυπρίζω’, 2016-2020

 

The project  “Κυπρίζω” (= to bloom) is composed of different sized portraits painted and drawn in black ink.  The seniors featured in the portraits are Cypriots whom the artist either has met and documented or fabricated by observation and scattered memorisation.  

 

The series are a personal exploration of the meaning and the embodiment of the word ‘Cypriot’ and a protest to our ethnicity’s division and the colonial urge to subvert Cyprus to a helpless state, dependent on Greece.

 

As soon as we are born to be Cypriots, we are unquestionably expected to pick a side and grow hatred for another group of Cypriots which we never experienced or met, before we even develop our sense of political agency.  Being naturally raised as victims of historical propaganda, the racist and sexist filters which are forced into our judgement only work in favour of further division, tolerance of facist political acts, and a blurred sense of national identity and community. 

 

The simplicity in the installation of the project as well as the manipulation of medium signify the simple act of sourcing bicommunal love and understanding (of the diverse community of Cyprus) in order to gain eagerness in sourcing the not-so-easy task of decolonising Cyprus. 

​

​