On Thursday 17th of April 2008, in the art space of Astrolavos dexameni (Xanthippou 11, Kolonaki, tel: 210 7294342, 3, fax: 210 7293317, www.astrolavos.gr, opening hours: Tu - Fr 10.30-14.00 & 18.00 - 21.00, Sat 10.30 - 14.30) opens a painting exhibition by Lefteris Olympios entitled: ' Panagies tis Omorfias ' (in the lower level of the gallery)and a painting exhibition of Evridiki Kallimachou entitled ' Land-self ' (in the middle level of the gallery).

The artist claims: 'It is one of the twelve chapels, which I have chosen to photograph and work on them, amongst numerous scattered ones in and around the village. The choice has been made based on personal criteria and other times just because I enjoyed the beauty of the surrounding place.

The chapel of 'Panagia tis Omorfias', is a simple place; the icon of Virgin Mary, which is covered in Lefkarian lace, has inspired me to work on the twelve portraits. These portraits are seen as a monument for women; the women who are oppressed, the women with vision, the successful, the women of labor and the betrayed women.

This group of work is also the fulfillment of a small debt to the amazing village and to my grandmother Theophila, who for numerous summers took care of me and taught me the respect and appreciation which I should have towards these small, sacred places as the chapel of 'Panagia tis Omorfias'.

During the same period of time - in the middle level of the gallery- is presented the exhibition of painting works by Evridiki Kallimachou , entitled: ' Poetic Landscapes' . The artists abstract works are characterized by tenderness of colours in contrast with very few spots of hard black; austere structure of synthesis, delicate variations in feeling and an expansion of the idea of 'dripping'.

The artist says for her work: 'Painting for me is an act of commitment and redemption for it is a free expression of my life. Specially, with the help of abstraction I try to express myself with images - not yet organized in my mind- because their creation is subject to a dire necessity , later on observed that unconsciously I separate the canvas surface on three parts. Just because speed of painting has great importance for me, the images I make are products of my spontaneity and rational process.

When painting I get the feeling that I am struggling with my own existence. The moment I act spontaneously on the canvas, I experience a feeling of both building and discovering myself.

By abstraction I managed to get rid of the superfluous and keep to the essence of the problem, which I would describe as that of the boundary between two different places, and of my own need for free accessibility to both. When asked for the place I come from, I reply that I was born in Palaiosopho, Kerynia, which is located in the northern part of Cyprus .

However, I never saw it nor could I form a representation of it, because from the day I was born till the age of 18 I lived in a refugee camp in Nicosia , and felt the line dividing Cyprus in two goes right through me. I felt I was building myself on a vacuum, for the serious identity - gap thus perceived made me feel that I was hanging in the air. How can one visualize a place one has never seen or lived?

As is for me the filling in of this gap, for in my daily life I always came up against this boundary, and this dividing produced an acute need for accessibility. This accessibility became to me the braking of boundaries, and the need for open horizons. Through this openness I endeavor to create dreamlike pictures, through which things emerge in their quietness on my canvas. There do I project the places that have arisen from my search. I pursuing the openness of the places I bridge the gap in my existence. Painting is a way to acquire the existence of the unknown place.

I consider the process as important as is its final result. Through my own painting practice I try to bring under control the empty place and create 'my own place'.

Duration of exhibition: Saturday 10th of May