Artist of the Month January - Lia Boyatzi
It was perhaps this first experience living on her own, rescinded by all familial and friendship ties that shaped her personality as the one of an observer. Her works appears as the one of someone sitting aside to observe reality. "It's life – it is every experience that influences me," she claims. Her late work, in fact, concentrates in protrayal, in that subtle art of watching long and deep into the model's soul to say much more than meets the eye. "Sometimes it takes me more than a year to complete a portrait. The models are usually people I know and my experience, my life with them influences the painting." The fine grey and black lines that, much like a blown-up drawing, minutely describe the features of the model come from months of reflection and sometimes re-thinking. "Sometimes," she adds, "sometimes the portrait changes as my relationship with that person does. I want to be honest in my art; I want to be true to reality."
Another subject for whom she is recognized by is the "anonymous" nudes. Large scale, round, female forms are portrayed as pure volumes, soft matter that has the beauty of the abstraction. She can't help but be surprised every time they ask her "why do you paint only women?" This is not the point, for her. "Of course," she says, "they are all women, but my interest lies in their forms, in their shape. It is that, which happens to be in a body, that attracts me."
Circumstances seem to have dictated many artistic transformations in her life. "Take the nudes, for example. I called them: anonymous because the models have no face, their face is always turned away. At the beginning this was what I had to do, because my models, in such a small place like Cyprus, did not want their face to be recognized. So, it has been by chance that I found the way to express these forms without the distraction of the head." She has been suffering of the same conditions many other artists did suffer. Cézanne, for example, could not find female models in the small Aix en Provence where he was living. Therefore, he used men and then tried to soften their forms.
"But it hasn't always been like that." Lia remembers her years in New York with a particular fondness. "When I lived there, life experiences, influences from all that was around me, were much stronger than here, or any other place I had been, for that matter. This is why I started the series with guns. For someone who was not born in the United States, the overbearing existence of guns is, to say the least, shocking. I gave each of my friends a gun and asked them to carry it for a week. After that, they'd come to my studio and I'd let them assume the pose they preferred. Yes, back then, I left the model to choose his or her position, because I wanted to express the individual attitude towards guns without intervening."
She exhibited these works in Paris, in 2002, accompanied by a note where she told the story as she saw it. "Today," she says sadly, "I don't know whether it was art that imitated reality or if it was reality that influenced art." The niece of her former husband was shot and killed after the exhibition, in a way that seems to be drawn by her words in the exhibition catalogue.
Where her path will lead her is not clear, nor does she want it to be. "Who knows what other experiences are still suspended in the future of my life?"
EXHIBITIONS:
Solo Exhibitions:
- Kastelliotissa Hall, Nicosia Cyprus (2008).
- Kastelliotissa Hall, Nicosia Cyprus (2005).
- Diatopos Centre of Arts, Nicosia, Cyprus (2003).
- MAISON DE LA GRECE, Paris, France (2002).
- Gallery Pantheon, Nicosia Cyprus (200).
Group Exhibitions:
- Under construction”, Nicosia Municipal Art Centre, Cyprus (2007).
- “Love me tender”,Argo Gallery, Nicosia Cyprus (2007).
- “Three steps to Maze”, Argo Gallery, Nicosia Cyprus (2007).
- Rua Gallery, Limassol, Cyprus (2006).
- Open Studios Art Festival within the walls of Old Nicosia, Cyprus (2006).
- “The playmaker” at Diatopos Centre of Contemporary Art (2006).
- Nicosia Art Festival, Kastelliotissa Hall, Nicosia, Cyprus (2006).
- Morphi Gallery Limassol, Cyprus (2006).
- Modernization Art Exhibition at Gaia Nicosia Cyprus (2005).
- “Unclaimed Luggage” Exhibition at Circulo de Bellas Artes Madrid Spain (2005).
- Nomadifesta 2004 – Organized by the Artrageous Group – Exhibited in Kastelliotissa Hall Nicosia Cyprus (2004).
- Open Studios exhibition within the walls of Old Nicosia, Cyprus (2004).
- “Idiosistasies” at Diatopos Center of Contemporary Art (2004).
- Group Exhibition of young Cypriot women artists KERAVA ART MUSEUM, FINLAND 06/03/04 – Organized I cooperation with the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Finland, the Kerava Art Museum of Finland, the Cyprus Chamber of Fine Arts and with the support of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus (2004).
- SHARED ECHOS project is done n collaboration with E.M.A.A. (European Mediterranean Artists Association) – Group Exhibition in Kastelliotissa Hall (2004).
- Studio Gallery (figure-ebb & flow), Nicosia, Cyprus (2003).
- Open Studios exhibition within the walls of Old Nicosia, Cyprus (2003).
- Group exhibition of Greek and Turkish Cypriots in the presence of The General Secretary of the United Nations, Nicosia, Cyprus (2003).
- OPUS 39 GALLERY, Nicosia, Cyprus (2001).
- Anti-cancer Society (Cypriot and foreign artists’ group exhibition) Nicosia, Cyprus (2001).
- Anti-cancer Society (Bank of Cyprus, Cypriot and foreign artists Group exhibition) Nicosia, Cyprus (2000).
- Cypriot Women Painters (Bank of Cyprus) (2000).
- Scali Aglantzias. Nicosia Cyprus (1999).
- Gallery Opus 39; group exhibition of paintings, sculptors, and constructions Limassol, Cyprus (1999).
- Italian Embassy, Nicosia, Cyprus (1996).
- Comune di San Giagomo, Rome, Italy (1994).
- Comune di San Giagomo, Rome, Italy (1993).
