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I was amused to be contacted by the Cyprus Mail during the course of my exhibition at CVAR in Nicosia. They invited me to complete a light-hearted questionnaire which to my slight surprise appeared as a half page spread in a subsequent edition of the paper. I enclose the feature here for posterity:
Much thanks to the indomitable Felicity Cormack for organising the Drawing From Dance workshop which took place at Asthall Manor, near Burford, Oxfordshire, on Sunday 18 November, and to Luke Brown from Luke Brown Dance Ltd for providing the dancers who proved such brilliant subjects for the day long session in this 17th century manor’s grand ballroom. The session was fully subscribed and a great success.
It’s amazing how many and varied were approaches of the sixteen artists taking part in addressing the challenge of drawing and capturing movement. Some fix their eyes on the subject, hold the pen or brush on the paper and allow their hand to move where it will as they follow the motion of the dancers, resulting in an abstract composition that they either leave in its raw form or work up in ink or colour. My own approach is to try to mentally photograph a single moment and quickly record it, generally using charcoal for instant impact, while the dancers continue their performance.
I attended a previous similar session run by Felicity last year. The drawings arising from that session are included in the Drawing From Life page on this site. I have posted a handful of images from this session on the same page.
I attach images of the day below.
In May and June 2018, I held my first ever exhibition at the Centre of Visual Arts and Research (CVAR) in Nicosia, Cyprus. I showed 22 works drawn in pen and ink of places I had visited in the previous 9 months of living on that Mediterranean island.
The exhibition came about in part due to a tip off from my friend Angus Reid, himself a very successful and accomplished Scottish artist living in Cyprus, who appreciated my work and felt that not only would it be worthy of public display but that CVAR, with its collection of works with a Cypriot theme, would be the ideal forum. Angus knew Rita Severis, the owner and curator of CVAR, and lobbied her on my behalf. Angus’s efforts paid off and Rita generously granted me an audience.
I was very nervous when I first met her – I had never had my work scrutinised for a possible exhibition before. Rita examined my work with the sort of inscrutible, deadpan facial expression that has probably served her well down the years when faced with others offering up work in a similar way, but when she had finished casting her eye over my drawings she said: ‘get the pictures framed, do some flyers and the foyer is yours’. She liked them. I had my breakthrough.
Thereafter, a considerable amount of effort was expended, both in the UK and Cyprus, designing and arranging for the printing of flyers, finding a framer, selecting mounts and mouldings, distributing flyers and hanging the framed drawings in the gallery.
The exhibition finally opened on 29 May and I received plenty of positive feedback:
‘A wonderful collection of drawings. Well done! You are very talented.’ David W, Lancaster.
‘Simply wonderful. The Agia Sophia captured my heart. Thank you and congratulations’ Elizabeth Bucher
‘Lovely work. Clean and evocative.’ Marina Parisinou.
The exhibition was picked up by the local press and I was delighted it was given coverage in the local English language newspapers, the Cyprus Mail and Cyprus Today.
In addition to my gratitude to Angus and Rita, thanks go to my wife’s niece Kate, for introducing me to Ruth, the nice Armenian lady at Moufflon Books in Nicosia, and to Ruth herself for providing me with the introduction to Angus and the framers at Zampelas Art, Nicosia. Thanks also to Demetris Demetriou at Zampelas Art for the framing, plus my sister Jane for her assistance in designing the flyers.
Thanks also to Maria Galanti from the Italian Embassy in Nicosia, who commissioned me on the strength of my work in the exhibition to prepare a series of drawings for her.
