MeMeraki Artist Residency in Limassol is getting ready to host the first personal exhibition of artist Danae Laou. Cotton Candy Concrete features a series of paintings that pair bold visuals with emotional tension. The artworks will be unveiled on Friday.

Blending bright colours and quirky figures, Laou’s pieces are approachable yet uneasy at the same time as the artist dabbles with playfulness and the political. Beneath seemingly upbeat scenes lies a world of discomfort, contradiction and disconnection.

The exhibition takes shape as a personal response to Limassol’s transformation – its gentrification, its glossy redevelopment, and the disorientation of witnessing your city become something unrecognisable. Laou’s paintings capture what it feels like to stay rooted while everything around you shifts.

“Living in Limassol is like listening to your favourite song be butchered by someone who doesn’t know the lyrics,” says Laou. “It’s an emotional whiplash – sunsets and ancient streets colliding with empty boutique hotels and luxury towers. These paintings are my way of witnessing that absurdity, and sometimes mocking it.”

Painted in acrylic on unstretched canvas, each piece functions like a banner, a backdrop, or a protest sign. Laou builds and disrupts layers, creating surfaces that mirror the push and pull of nostalgia, frustration and resistance. Some of the works are linked through palette and rhythm, while others stand alone.

At varying sizes and price points, some of the works on show are made deliberately more accessible for young collectors and creatives. The pieces will be displayed unframed, with framing options available on request.

This exhibition signals a shift in Danae Laou’s practice – a bolder, more unfiltered approach to painting as a space for memory, resistance and emotional truth.

“These are the most honest paintings I’ve made. They turn rage into humour, nostalgia into resistance. They prove that softness doesn’t mean silence.”

Cotton Candy Concrete

Debut solo exhibition by Danae Laou. June 27-July 6. MeMeraki Artist Residency, Limassol. Opening night: 7pm. Monday–Friday: 9am–1pm. Closed Thursdays. Instagram: @meme.raki, @santa_nomeni