Reviews

A pleasant surprise and at the same time an impressive presence at the “ORA” gallery. Pertinent to the embroidery exhibition of the artist Avyi Dikaiou Kyriakidou. I use the term “artist” without any trace of hesitation because with this effort Kyriakidou succeeded in giving a complete work in the area of embroidery.

With 18 works presenting decorative motifs from Mycenean pots, geometrical forms and free drawing, all of which compose an entire whole with main characteristics the originality, the uniqueness and above all the sensitivity to colour. The matching of colours is truly unique, it wins over and nails down the eye of even the most demanding viewer.

The completion of the work presented to us by the artist certainly required laborious effort, great endurance, patience and time. Well worked, with care even to the smallest detail, her embroideries offer a new dimension to the artistic domain of embroidery, something not frequently seen in our country.

It is true that lately a tendency of going back to works of art done by hand is developing.

This necessity may have pushed the artist to endeavour in this kind of “handicraft” when discovering her potential she tried to fulfil it by creating authentic works coming out of her own hands. And her works have the seal of a creative personality and of fine taste. This love of her for embroidery work has given us the opportunity to admire creations of a high calibre and value which are set apart from many other trivialities appearing around us from time to time. The works we have seen may have decorative character but this character is enriched with perfect technique and aesthetic conception. Nothing is done accidentally, on the contrary, there is a method followed for the conception to materialise. Colours, drawings are in strict order.

What Avyi Dikaiou Kyriakidou has dared to do is an effort which impressed and makes us hopeful that her example will be followed by other artists who may have the inclination and charisma to create such works. Finally, the artist truly deserves the warmest congratulations and we wish her to seamlessly continue the effort she started as we believe that in the future she will offer us similar samples of her beautiful work.

“Niki Symeou and Iola Polydoritou have both had exhibitions of their fabric ‘pictures’, establishing the importance and the inevitability of work in fabric in the mainstream of art in Cyprus.

To these two highly talented artists we can now add a third. Avghi Dikaiou-Kyriakidou.

The artist has a ‘drawing’ eye which is very generous in line. Her curves flow freely, enabling the shapes contained by these linear trails to become beautiful.

The balance struck enables her to even expand out from the laminal areas onto the background of raw silk, linen or hessian.

Avghi’s meticulous care over the stitching gives even the most subtle of fabrics (satin, crepe) a tension which relates to the next area.

Thick wools sawn firmly down can give an illusion of a free charcoal sketch which suits a subject like a ‘Bird of Paradise Flower’ or a slip-brush bird design from antiquity to perfection.

Her technique is married to her vision. French knots scattered like sunbursts over flat planes, while stitches connect the image with the background in a free way.

For depth, her knowledge of colour recedes in coolness and for relief the artist pads soft silks and satins. There is much scope in this ‘colour-relief ‘ technique, for it adds yet another spatial dimension to her work.

Avghi also uses net in her pictures, which must be very difficult to sew. Overlapping it across different colours (the net is natural or near to it), it can appear like a wash in the softest of colours. Sometimes she places many layers of net on top of each other, the transparent material becomes solidified, and the illusion of art conquers once again.”

“Avgi Dikaiou Kyriakides works in various materials — net, silk, velvet etc., sewing, embroidering and using the technique of applique. She produces some exquisite works which have to be looked at closely in order to discover that she uses net, not paint.

These fine layers of net deceive the eye into thinking that they are pastel wash. Her horses, for instance, in the Mycenean are delicately formed from net cut-outs, yet no defining line can be seen — they appear to be painted in.

These Mycenean works are soft and mute in colour, while her other works are rich in colour.

To achieve these results one has to have knowledge of cutting and sewing and these Avgi has. She studied at the Manchester College of Art (now the Manchester Polytechnique) gaining a B.A. in Art, doing fashion and textile designing, and she later worked in industry as a designer and pattern maker. This experience she found invaluable in her present creative work.

Each work takes at least six weeks — finding the right material with which to work, the right colour threads, and so on. But it is difficult to convey to the reader an accurate picture of what she achieves.”

Avyi’s exhibition has its own character. And this is a first and great conquest for any artist.

It has one more characteristic. The basic material is cloth and thread. The most archaic materials. Together with these, beads, buttons, butterflies, which have always been intriguing to man. She joins all these together, turns them into picture and vision with colour and radiance. These are other basic components of her work which cannot go unnoticed, such as the simplicity, the sincerity, the reverence in what she makes, the amount and care of her work.

The artist draws her subject matters from the world she sees, which moves her and reaches deeply inside her. The sea with its hues, the rocks with their outlines, as thrown on the seashore by the vehemence of the volcano, the branches, the shades, the lilies of the seaside, the birds in their primitive form. Avyi is in a dialogue with nature, with life and expresses in her own creative way what surrounds us with sensitivity and politeness. She digs deep into time and place and gives us visions, which we desperately need with today’s circumstances and which only art can capture.