Chyrsa Kanari 

PAINTING

My painting practice investigates the aesthetics of horror in narratives of war, atrocity, crime and death. 

My art is not merely about representation. It is about exploiting the materiality of paint to achieve the most impactful interpretation of the image I am working from. Through the unconventional use of colour, dramatic use of light and the dynamic brush work, I aim to capture the intensity of human emotion and in particular; pain. 

The painting series I’m currently working on explores the hardships the Cypriots suffered through the years of colonisation, intercommunal violence and the Turkish invasion of 1974. I paint children as the helpless, silent victims of war. A lifeless corpse laying cold in a bathtub. A displaced body being dragged around like luggage. Orphans collected in shelters like stray dogs. Their confused, scared, tormented faces look up at their voyeur. Their piercing stare casts blame. 

My paintings are confrontational. They are meant to unsettle and disturb the viewers as haunting reminders of the sinful and corrupt aspect of the human condition and of the horrors and torments we are capable of inflicting onto our own kind.