“Take All Of Me” 2014
Oil on canvas, Diptych 120x180 cm ( In two parts, each 90x120 cm)
Exhibitions:
2014 "Lumière de Paix", UN Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
2016 The Modern Portrait, JanKossen Contemporary Gallery, New York
Owned by a private collector. Brussels, Belgium
Vibrant, honest and holistic; Ms Nina's image is a sang froid homage to the polymorphic and wonderful diversity of our species. The richly disparate collection of cultural and body fragments into a dynamic whole is a fascinating act of reverence for our superb distinctiveness on every level; as if to say “All so different yet all so gracefully the same."
“In the Garden of Eden” is a heartfelt request to be accepted in our glorious complexity, to be loved in our quilt-patched nature; a nature that is sewn from the criss-cross stitches of history, culture, environment, power, circumstance, age and genetics. The challenge is understanding how our deep longing for total acceptance translates into a readiness to offer a total embrace.
Strife can thus be seen as a failure to comprehend the universality within the unique; harmony, ergo, is the appreciation of our differences as reminders of our similarities. The woman and man via their flirt express an urge to 'unification' which can only genuinely occur if there is authentic acceptance.
Gerald Marks song sings “Your goodbye Left me with eyes that cry” and infers, I cannot exist only within what is approved; “so please... take all of me”. Costa Constantinides, MSc Counseling Psychology & BA political science
Kokino Kiklo or Residual Heroines
Humanity is a narrative of epochs. This residual discourse trickles down from one generation to the next, echoing the past within the present in partial forms, which we perform as contemporary metanarratives through lived experience. To varying degrees, this is how we understand ourselves and others. ‘Residual Heroines’ emphasises this dialogue of fractured totality and its survival through a series of uncanny reflections that are held together within a tapestry of mutable forms on the cusp of evolution. The central figure residing over these complex states of articulating the irresolute tensions of this archaic praxis as a negotiation of traditions, traumas, identity, belonging, displacement, and change in a way that blurs the boundaries between beauty and disturbance, pleasure and pain. She is synonymous with the inquisitions of contemporary culture and a raconteur who is working through the narratives that often left her quarantined. Text: Dr Frosoulla Kofterou
for Residual Heroines
Inspiration and References:
Portrait of Lieutenant General Manto Mavrogenous, the heroine of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, Lithography by Adam Friedel (1827); Milja Marin Partisan of People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia during World War II; painting “The sortie of Messologhi” by Theodore Vryzakis (1853); painting “Le Massacre de Chio”s by Eugène Delacroix (1824); Portrait of “Laskarina Bouboulina” by Anonymous; painting “Souliotisses” by Georgios Miniatis; painting “Anchored Boats” by Konstantinos Volanakis (1895) Photos of missing persons following 1974 war in Cyprus; Oxi Day 28. October 1940 of Greek Resistance during the Axis occupation; The Annan Plan, also known as the Cyprus reunification plan, a United Nations proposal to resolve the Cyprus dispute 2004; Traditional Cyprus folk costume; Türkmen folk costumes from Merkez Kapıkaya, Turkey; the Victorian lady in lace collar and cuffs and puffed-sleeve dress; Armenian traditional costume; Serbian traditional costume; Venetian bridge Tzelefos Bridge (γεφύρι του Τζιελεφού), Paphos forest Varvaro's River (Barbarian); Kosovo Maiden Uroš Predić, 1919; Greek mythological creature Cerberus (Κέρβερος), a multiheaded dog often referred to as the hound of Hades, that guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving; Athens, City of Gods; Pandemic 2021; Sandro Botticelli - The Birth of Venus (1486);
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