Androulla
Ktori was born in Akanthou village in 1953.
She has been painting since her childhood. When she was a
third grade student of the gymnasium she was awarded the first
prize in an international students’ contest which was held in
California U.S.A. and the same year she was awarded the second
prize for her painting she submitted for the Orange Festival at
Famagusta. She was also awarded the first prize for her
submission for the contest dedicated to the Greek Nation’s
Regeneration. All these awards prove her natural talent and love
for the Arts. Her
work is characterised by homesickness respect and genuineness
for the local tradition. She is homesick for her ‘ lost
childhood paradise’ of her village, the occupied Akanthou.
She
remarks that ‘all my paintings are memories of Akanthou as I
remember it when I had to leave it in 1974. Beloved places and
neighbourhoods are illustrated in all my topics. I
subconsciously transfer these memories of my occupied village on
the canvas, try to keep them alive and pass them to the younger
generation’.
The
art critic, Stelios Lydakis pointedly remarks in the preface of
his book ‘The Greek Naïve Painters’ that the typical homesickness
of the most naïve painters for the ‘lost paradise’ of
their childhood is revived every now and then by returning to it
with unprecedented warmth. Someone recalls the simple life of
the village, the customs and habits, the festivities. It was at
that time that everything had a meaning and fed her psyche with
all she needed to be pleased with herself’.
Androulla
Ktori is a genuine representative of what Stelios Lydakis says. As
Telemachos Kanthgos remarked for her first one-woman exhibition
‘her paintings are self-sufficient, characterised for their
warm colours’. |