From Cyprus to Times Square: exploring a world beyond reality

Published in international fashion magazines and exhibited in major creative centres, Stavri Georgiou combines photography, filmmaking and digital art

Before her work appeared in international magazines or was exhibited in cities like London, Milan and New York, Stavri Georgiou was a little girl watching her father paint. Art was part of her daily life.

Her father introduced her to drawing and encouraged her to experiment, showing her that a blank canvas could become a way of expressing feelings and telling stories. “I remember watching him paint and being fascinated by the way he could transform a blank canvas into something meaningful,” she says.

That early influence stayed with her.

From childhood inspiration to a creative career

While her father worked with paint, Stavri found her own way of looking at the world, through a camera lens.

She saved money while still at school to buy her first one. It was a small but important step towards a career that would take her well beyond Cyprus.

“I experimented with photography, capturing everyday moments and discovering how lighting, composition and emotions could completely transform an image,” she says. This interest eventually led her towards filmmaking and visual art.

Building an international career beyond Cyprus

“Coming from a small island in the Mediterranean, I sometimes felt that the opportunities available in industries such as fashion, photography and filmmaking were limited compared to larger creative cities like London, Paris or New York,” she says.

Rather than putting her off, that limitation made her more determined to build a career beyond the island.

Her studies in the UK exposed her to different creative environments and encouraged her to explore the relationship between technology, visual culture and storytelling.

Her work has since been published in Vogue Greece and i-D while her images have been exhibited internationally, including in London, Milan, Tokyo and Los Angeles. Her work has also appeared in Times Square in New York on two occasions.

Images between reality and fiction

Georgiou’s work moves between photography, fashion, film and digital art.

She draws inspiration from film noir, classic Hollywood cinema and the music videos and fashion imagery of the 1980s.

“I have always been drawn to imagery that feels cinematic, mysterious and emotionally powerful, particularly work that exists somewhere between reality and fiction,” she says.

Themes of identity, solitude, memory and human emotion have increasingly found their way into her work.

Her experiences of growing up in Cyprus and later living and studying in the UK have also helped shape her perspective.

Her father’s influence remains present, too. Although he is no longer alive, she says his approach to art continues to inform the way she works.

“Sometimes, when I am creating an image or developing a new concept, I think about how much I would love to show him what I have achieved and hear his thoughts,” she says.

Exploring the creative possibilities of AI

More recently, Georgiou has been exploring artificial intelligence as another tool for creating images.

She won first place in the fashion category at the AI Master Awards, adding a new dimension to a practice that already spans several creative disciplines.

She sees AI as an additional medium rather than a replacement for photography or filmmaking, offering ways to build unusual settings and explore ideas that might otherwise be difficult to realise, but she believes the human element remains essential.

The technology also raises difficult questions about copyright, originality and the future of creative work. Georgiou recognises those concerns, particularly as AI becomes more widely used in the fashion and visual arts industries.

For her, the challenge is to find ways for new technology and traditional creative skills to coexist without losing the emotion and intention behind an image.

Still dreaming bigger

One of her biggest dreams is to direct a cinematic fashion campaign for a major fashion house, bringing together fashion and film in a way that tells a story rather than simply advertises clothes.

She would also like to develop larger film projects and exhibitions combining photography, moving images and immersive experiences.

But there is another ambition behind the professional goals: to show that coming from Cyprus need not determine how far an artist can go.

“I want to use my journey to inspire other young artists to pursue their ambitions, regardless of their background or circumstances,” she says.

For Georgiou, the journey is still unfolding, but the inspiration behind the work remains much the same: “to make images that communicate something words cannot”.

And somewhere in each of them, she says, is a little of the painter who first taught her how to see.