New Larnaca exhibition showcases artist’s life’s work

An ongoing art showcase at Larnaca Municipal Gallery presents a retrospective exhibition of Nitsa Hadjigeorgiou with a wide range of the artist’s paintings. Titled When Our Eyes Meet, the exhibition approaches issues related to the creative process, but also the relationship between a painting and a social space.

Hadjigeorgiou, born in Famagusta in 1949, has been established as one of the most important figures in Cypriot art. At the age of just 15 she organised her first exhibition at the encouragement of her teacher, Eleni Harikleidou. She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts and since then she has not stopped creating, while at the same time working as a teacher in secondary education.

Her diverse work has been presented in many solo and group exhibitions. Some of the most impressive are the representations of Cyprus in events abroad such as the Paris Biennale in 1985, New Delhi Triennial in 1991, where works from the series Ecological Agony won first prize. This latest exhibition embarks on a journey through the decades of Hadjigeorgiou’s art.

“In Hadjigeorgiou’s practice,” says curator Evagoras Vanezis, “we observe the simultaneous development of a series of works with very different characteristics, which as a whole create a diverse collection of things. The artist returns from time to time to different dissimilarities, making them the question of a recovery through which she deals with the reception of artistic relations and with the limits of the autonomy of the painting.

“To approach Hadjigeorgiou’s work,” he adds, “we enter an intermediate space of thought where the sensory intakes of sight and touch meet. Sight, like hearing, receives stimuli from a distance. Touch, like taste, are senses of closeness that allow us to recognise qualities at the boundaries of bodies and objects. The interaction of these two senses leaves us exposed to a creative impulse, where things can only be held if we look at them.”

Thus, he explains that what is suggested in When Our Eyes Touch is a presentation of Hadjigeorgiou’s work through four sections that develop around the enigma of a look, a glance that touches and is touched, reacting to the coordinates of proximity and distance. “It serves,” he concludes, “as an invitation to take a different approach to things and maintain a position of openness, emphasising a sometimes beautiful and sometimes hard fragility.”

When Our Eyes Touch

Retrospective exhibition on Nitsa Hadjigeorgiou’s work. Until April 2. Larnaca Municipal Gallery, Larnaca. Monday-Friday: 9am-1pm and 3pm-6pm. Saturday: 10am-1pm. Tel: 24-653333