GIORGOS EROTOKRITOS

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"It is my free instinct that led me without prejudice to today's work. I have embraced tradition, I have assimilated it, I have made it a dominant element of my work. I trace the way and the elements that reveal my Greek identity. I set myself free in the colour, in the shape, in the dream, the primordial symbols, the origins of our race, as they were given to us as an integral part of our Greek-Christian and Byzantine tradition. I shape my painting-dreams as they come, sometimes happy and sometimes melancholic. Forms that inhabit and share space with us, lonely even when there are two. Wood that our ancestors took and worked on them. Now with my own work they are not lost but they continue to rest transformed. In this way, the wood that takes on a soul, each tells their own story."

Giorgos Erotokritos (1948-2013) was born in Lampousa, Cyprus. He studied in Athens and London. He then returned to work in Athens where he also attended woodcarving and restoration classes. In 1980 he returned to Cyprus and settled in Limassol. He held many solo exhibitions and took part in many group exhibitions in Cyprus and abroad. In 1996 the well-known house Fabergé invited Erotokritos to their workshop to paint a series of the famous eggs. For his own eggs, Erotokritos chose to use the symbols of his creative path such as the Angel and the Mermaid. Erotokritos had his last exhibition at Gloria Gallery in March 2013. He passed away a few months later.