Two new exhibitions open this week in Nicosia

As the cultural agenda gets busier, in Nicosia, two new art exhibitions will welcome November in two completely different moods.

At Alpha CK Art Gallery, Christos Michaelides presents his new painting series with a solo exhibition opening on Friday, titled A Safe Place for Mistranslations. The underlying and unifying theme of his work is landscape art, which is the basis for further morphological explorations. He uses this theme to examine the role and possibilities of painting today and landscape functions more as a stimulus for the artist’s stylistic pursuits than as a virtual obsession. His work presents a violent intervention of geometry, which creates unknown and otherworldly images.

Then, on Saturday another exhibition will open in the capital yet this one will include a performance as well. Passion Play is a showcase by artist Miriam Gatt, presented at Thkio Ppalies from November 5 to 18. Writing about the exhibition/performance, Sonia Neidorf says: “Passion Play is a meditation on what the sublime becomes when it is salvaged from the parallel dogmas of religion and rationalisation. In discovering an individual perspicacity, a muted truth emerges: that the holiness that has been pristine is capable of withstanding mundanity; that mundanity is thereby elevated to the sacred. Blurring the lines between holy and profane, it liberates and democratises the religious feeling. What was once untouchably sacred becomes touchingly vulnerable, and vice versa. The holy is witnessed in garden tiles crafted with a loved one; in vandalism; in the ritualistic washing of dishes; in poetry and play. Neither dogmatic nor secular, Passion Play inhabits the spaces of the everyday sublime.”

The exhibition will open with a one-time-only performance, in English, by Miriam and Esther Gatt on the day of the opening, welcoming visitors at 5.30pm.

A Safe Place for Mistranslations

Solo exhibition by Christos Michaelides. November 4-12. Alpha C.K. Art Gallery, Nicosia. Opening night: 7pm. Tuesday-Friday: 10am-1pm and 4pm and 7pm. Saturday: 10am-1pm. Tel:22-751325. www.ackgallery.com

Passion Play

Exhibition/performance by Miriam Gatt. November 5-18. Thkio Ppalies, Nicosia. Opening night: 5.30pm. Performance 6pm. Wednesday-Friday: 5pm-8pm. [email protected]