Plaster and pigment
While researching Scottish myths I was drawn to the story of the blue men of the Minch. These men were sea creatures that appeared to be human and spoke the same as men but the different colour of their skin gave them away.
Their arrival meant that a storm would soon follow and men grew to be afraid of them. Casting a modern eye on this ancient myth, the image of people rising from the sea - "others", with different skin, asking us pressing questions - brings the current refugee crisis in Europe to mind and the storm brewing in terms of social, economic and geo-political matters.
Video-sculpture installation
PCV plastic, plexiglass, ceramic, video projections
Humans are beings that are able to transform themselves according to their environment and their objectives. Man has the ability to adapt his personality, his habits and transform his appearance in order to achieve those objectives. When they turn into obsessions, the transformations become more evident. My inspiration was the relationship between Lewis Carrol (Charles Dodgeson), the writer of “Alice in Wonderland”, and Alice a little girl that was entertained by his stories and for whom the story was written for. I saw the passion the writer had for the girl who admired him so and for childhood innocence, as the motivating force of his transformations in order to approach Alice even more. Lewis managed to hide these transformations in the real world yet he embodied in his book where most of the characters where personifications of his alter ego.
Ceramic and glaze
“Women are made to be loved, not understood.”
Oscar Wilde
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Work completed during the Glo’Art artist residency. © Glo’Art
Sculpture and Photograph installation
In Greek mythology, a curse by Poseidon causes the queen of Crete, Pasiphae, to fall in love with a white bull and later give birth to a half-man half-bull creature. Consumed with desire for the beast she looks for ways to transform, to relinquish her identity and everything human about herself in order to mate with the bull.
The work deals with contemporary Western notions of human identity, suggesting that an individual's self-image and respect is dependant on social categorisation.
The Queen distorts her body and masks herself to entice the bull, who is represented by a male figure painted white, unaware of being her object of desire. She relinquishes her humanity to approach the beast, in order to be human; to love.
Perceptions of cultural identity can often be seen to cast peoples in a mold that negates the true ideal of individuation. Based on appearance, history, culture, family background from the minute we are children it seems like things are already pre determined.
The sculpture of a teenage Minotaur represents the faceless identities that exist in the seams of all societies. A broken-down character, unable to fight it's compulsions and giving in to what his nature 'intended' him to be, a beast, the sculpture implies instead that the human side of him is conscious and not impervious and indifferent to his life as a beast. The artwork was made as a comment on modern society and our failure to recognise a cry for help by certain individuals and are ready to condemn them once we have labelled them as different.
Musical Theatre performance
Composed and directed by Andreas Papapetrou
Installation and set design by Tonia Papapetrou
Boasting the most majestic views of old Nicosia, the terrace on the top floor of the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation comes to life in an immersive musical theatre performance with a boldly experimental mood and elements of interactivity.
Composed and directed by Andreas Papapetrou, the performance assembles a group of ten musicians to breathe new life into the space through sound, movement and sculptural interventions, after years of abandonment.
*The musical theatre performance «Reclaiming the Roof» inaugurates the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation’s event series titled «The Roof».
