MONTH IN REVIEW: August 2024
A roundup of this month’s art and design news about the makers and creators from Greece and Cyprus
The Breeder Gallery opened a solo exhibition with British artist Luke Edward Hall
I Walk Over the Mountains and the Waves by British artist and designer Luke Edward Hall is inspired by island life and its enchanting qualities. The show’s title pays homage to the Hymn of Apollo poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which reflects the deep connection between art, nature, and spirituality. It is exhibited at the Old School of Chora in Patmos.
Hall’s work is inspired by nature as well as the island of Patmos. He weaves together storytelling elements by collecting memories, scents, and moments from the place, presenting them through vivid portraits and landscapes. The local context breathes life into his art, where the magic of everyday scenes — from fields and mountains to the sea and its creatures — is brought to life with an eroticism and lyrical tone that is unmistakably his. His works in this series feature saints and archangels alongside mythical figures and ordinary people — bathers, vacationers, and fishermen — that are drawn from Patmos’ heritage.
Photography by Bill Stamatopoulos
Crini & Sophia’s new brick-and-mortar location was featured on the T List
Crini & Sophia, the Greek houseware brand founded in 2022 by Maya Zafeiropoulou-Martinou, a former interior and set designer, opened its first storefront in the Kolonaki neighborhood of Athens. This announcement made it into the coveted T List, the New York Times’ design magazine.
Zafeiropoulou-Martinou designs many of the pieces in the store. She is inspired by colors in Fancis Bacon’s paintings and the Amazon rainforest. Linens are produced in Portugal before being embroidered in Greece with patterns that often take cues from antiques on view at Athens’s Benaki Museum. Hand-painted ceramics and glassware are made in partnership with artisans in New York, Greece, Italy and France.
The new store features wood-and-rattan shelves, two-tone marble floors, and furniture made by Greek artists. A vinelike steel and spray-paint piece by the Cypriot sculptor Socrates Socratous decorates one window.
Julia Dimakopoulou – an iconic figure in Greek contemporary art – passed away
Julia Dimakopoulou, the founder of the historic gallery "Nees Morfes" and the Institute of Contemporary Greek Art (ISET), passed away at the age of 92. Dimakopoulou was an iconic figure of Greek contemporary art. Since founding her gallery in 1959, she supported established and emerging artists through exhibitions and collaborations with curators and art historians. She launched the non-profit ISET in 2009 in collaboration with art historians and artists. The institute’s aim is to document the course of art in Greece from 1945 until today. She was also a pioneer in creating Art Athina, Greece’s first contemporary art fair. Her legacy was entrusted to the National Gallery in Athens in 2022.
It was announced that the Famagusta TV series will be on Netflix
Director and actor Andreas Georgiou announced that his show Famausta will air on Netflix starting September 20. The show focuses on the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and follows the life of a woman who lost her baby during the chaos. This woman and her husband have been searching for their missing child for fifty years.
Famagusta will be the second Cypriot production on Netflix, following the launch of the movie Find Me Falling.
Maria Mavropoulou for The New York Times
Greek jewelry designer Elana Votsti was featured in the New York Times
Elena Votsi opened her first jewelry store in 1991 after studying painting, drawing, and mosaics at the Athens School of Fine Arts and receiving a master’s degree in jewelry from the Royal College of Art in London. She has garnered quite the reputation for her jewelry that respect Greek culture and tradition.
Actresses, artists, designers and more have been visiting her store for years in search for unmatched pieces. Votsi has always used a variety of materials for her jewelry such as shells, enamel, precious and semiprecious gemstones, and actual stones. She works in silver and 18-karat gold. She integrates motifs from her heritage and surroundings into the designs. Votsi even designed the Olympic medals in 2004, which are still used today and were featured in this year’s Paris games.
Is a world run by women a better place? EMST’s year-long all-female artist series was featured in The Guardian
Since December 2023, the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMΣT) has presented a cycle of exhibitions under the title What if Women Ruled the World?. Writer Helena Smith of The Guardian discussed the undertaking of this display through interviews with Katerina Gregos, the museum’s artistic director, and Penny Siopsis, a South African artist who is also part of the series.
Every floor of EMST currently displays a female artist– a first in museum history.
“The exhibition’s title is intentionally provocative,” said Katerina Gregos, the museum’s artistic director, who smiles at the prospect of visitors probing the “hypothetical question” of how different the world could be: “What we are asking visitors to do is try and take a leap of the imagination and think what it would be like if governance and decision-making were in the hands solely of women.”
Read the full story about EMST’s bold move here. The series will be completed this November.
