THE COLOURIST
Kikos Lanitis was born in 1948 in Limassol, Cyprus but spent his adolescence and coming of age in London during the legendary 60’s.
His studies at Kingsway College offered him the necessary artistic training but his attitude and choices were determined irrevocably by the revolutionary climate of that period, the expiring glory of modernism, which Lanitis embraced with great enthusiasm.
A review of his long-term artistic course, reveals to the scholar of his work, a service of arduous work, of continuous speculation and of systematic construction of his personal expression.
What characterizes his artistic dictionary is the balance between the masterly working of colour and the hidden power of everyday objects found in his works of art.
Paper, metal, wood, cement, stone, photographs, fibre-glass, wire, pipes, compose the language of his materials and turn into carriers of expressive codes, co-operating with the second equivalent element of his work, colour.
But Lanitis, a colourist par excellence, preserves his interest unimpaired in the masterly working of colour, claiming chromatic qualities in every painting attempt of his, without ever seeking refuge in the facility of decorative and aesthetical play.
The huge retrospective exhibition of his works at the Municipal Gallery of Athens in the autumn of 2001, systematically recorded and represented the creativity of his journey which ended with the adoption of undulated cardboard as a bedding for his paintings instead of the canvas and the artistic elements and possibilities offered to him by the bas relief of this particular material.
Another three important exhibitions followed, subsidized by the Ministry of Culture of Greece and the Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus, under the auspices of the Municipal Gallery of Athens.
The first at the Greek Cultural Center in Stockholm, in September 2002, the second at the “Bastejs” University Gallery in Riga in February 2003, and the third at the National Gallery of Lithuania at Vilnius in March 2003.
All exhibitions were organized under the Greek European Presidency and Lanitis’ work became known throughout all of the Northern European countries.
His work was also shown in Stockholm at the Mediterranean Museum.
Nelli Kyriazi, Director of the Municipal Gallery and Museums of Athens :
“Lanitis is undoubtedly one of the most important and celebrated artists working in Greece and Cyprus. His dedication to hand-building his mixed media pieces from found materials – a slow, complex and methodical process – is essential to the final form and feeling of his works. Equally integral is the surface and colour of his artworks, achieved by refined detailing and controlled positioning during the finishing process.”
KIKOS LANITIS
More than 100 personal exhibitions
(a selection)
2023 Gallery Alfa CK.
2017 gallery Alfa CK.
2016 gallery Alfa CK.
2014 Gallery Gloria
2013 Gallery Gloria
2012 Gallery Gloria
2011 gallery Gloria “imagine it as art”
2010 gallery Ekfrasi (Yiannas Grammatopoulou) Athens “closing your eyez don’t mean u ain’t there”
2008 “Silks Gallery” Limassol “closing your eyez don’t mean u ain’t there”.
2007 Titanium Art Gallery, Athens. ‘Is life more precious than food and the body more precious than clothes?
2007 Gloria Gallery, Nicosia
2007 Faccia Lei (Portraits in Transition), Spazio Thetis – Arsenale Novissimo
52nd International Venice Biennale (proposal – Museum Arterra Austria)
2006 “La Bottega” Limassol, Cyprus
2005 Titanium Art Gallery, “Moments”, Athens
2004 Municipal Gallery of Larnaca, Cyprus
2003 “Quest” – Mediterranean Museum of Stockholm
2003 National Gallery of Lithuania – Vilnius (Under the Greek European Union Presidency)
2003 “Bastejs” University Gallery – Riga (under the Greek European Union Presidency)
2002 Greek Cultural Centre in Stockholm
2001 Municipal Gallery of Athens, retrospective exhibition “Kikos Lanitis, 1984-2001”
(Curator: Nelli Kyriazi).
1999 “Art in a garage” – Limassol
1995 Municipal Gallery of Athens,
1997 “Iliotropio Gallery” – Larnaka
1997 Art House – Pera Pedi, “Colours”
1995 Gallery Apocalypse”
1994 House of Cyprus Athens
1994 Gallery Forum Athens
1993 House of Cyprus – Athens, “Explosion”
1993 Apocalypsis Gallery – Nicosia, “Universe”
1993 Municipal Gallery of Athens
1992 Morphi Gallery – Limassol, Performance “Fire and Cement”
1992 Viky Drakos Centre of Contemporary
Art – Athens, Performance “Fire, Sound and Cement”
1991 Viky Drakos Centre of Contemporary Art- Athens
1990 “Art house” Pera Pedi
1990 “Argo Gallery” – Nicosia
1989 “House of Cyprus”, Athens, “Room and sound”
1989 Art Space “Odos Athinon” – Limassol
1988 Gallery” Morfi”
1988 “My Proposition about art” (Prologue by Efi Strouza),
House of Cyprus – Athens, Video performance.
1987 “Ethousa Texnis” Athens
1987 Morphi Gallery – Limassol
1987 Argo Gallery – Athens (dedicated to Giannis Spyropoulos)
1986 Opus 39 Gallery – Nicosia
1985 Les Amis des Arts de Siene et Marine – Paris
1985 Studio Interior – Limassol
1985 Morphi Gallery – Limassol
1985 Zygos Gallery – Athens
1984 “Rembrandt Gallery” – Nicosia
1984 “La Licorne” Gallery –Fontainebleau, France
1983 Curium Gallery – Limassol
1982 Gloria Gallery – Nicosia
1981 Zygos Gallery – Athens
KIKOS LANITIS
Group exhibitions (a selection)
2007 “Art Athina” -Athens
2004 ‘Marathon’ – Gallery Titanium – Athens
2004 Athens 2004 culture Olympics Municipal Gallery Athens
2004 “Athens by art” installation for the culture Olympics 2004 in Athens
1996 “Greek Artists paint Christmas”, Municipal Gallery of Athens (Curator: Nelli Kyriazi)
1995 “Time is child moving pieces in a game” – Municipal Gallery of Athens
1995 Municipal Gallery of Patras
1995 Pinakothiki Larnakas
1995 Tobacco warehouses Spierer – Volos
1995 Petros Nomikos’ Thera Foundation, St. George bastion – Rhodes
1995 Municipal Gallery of Larnaka (Curator: Nelli Kyriazi)
1995 “Ichthys”, Averof Gallery – Metsovo
1991 Vicky Drakos Centre of Contemporary Art – Athens
1991 “Egoism”, House of Cyprus – Athens (Curator: Kostas Stavropoulos)
1993 “New Acquisitions of the Municipal Gallery of Athens” (Curator: Nelly Kyriazi)
1994 “Cultural Centre Melina Merkouri” – Athens (Curator: Nelly Kyriazi)
2013 Gallery Titanium
1994 Municipal Art Centre – Nicosia
1994 Pierides Gallery – Glyfada (Curators: Giannis Kolokotronis, Olga Mentzafou)
1994 “Cypriot Artists in the Pierides Gallery Collections”
1994 Municipal Gallery of Patras (Curators: Giannis Kolokotronis, Dimitris Papanikolaou)
1994 “Municipal Gallery of Athens, Greek Painting-Engraving- Sculpture”
1989 “Double Proposal – Lanitis, Mortarakos”, House of Cyprus – Athens
1988 Art Hall of Athens
1987 Epoches Gallery – Athens
1987 Panhellenic Exhibition – Athens
1986 International Exhibition for Peace and Humanity – Baghdad (U.N)
1985 Famagusta Gate – Nicosia (Curator: Kostas Stavropoulos)
1984 Centenaire de la Societe des Artistes Independents 1884-1984. Grand Palais de Champs Elysees – Paris
1982 XVI Grand Prix International d’ Art Contemporaine de Monte Carlo
