Phytorio (Visual Artists Association) is hosting the exhibition “Metaphor” by fourth year students of the Fine Art Programme, University of Nicosia.
The exhibition has been shaped as part of a series of collaborative exercises that gave rise to the theme of metaphor.
Opening
20/01/2017
Duration
20/01/2017- 26/01/2017
Opening times
Saturday to Sunday 11:00 – 14:00 | Monday to Wednesday 10:00 -14:00 | Thursday 15:00 – 19:00
Location
Phytorio, Visual Artists Association | 2 Nechrou St., Nicosia Municipal Gardens
Exhibitors
Eleni Chandriotou, Elena Christodoulidou, Panagiotis Christofides, Constantinos Georgiou, Claudia Paschalides, Rafy Prokopiou, Maria Stylianou, Marina Toufexis, Polymnia Tsinti, Maria Xinari, Maria Zintili
The word ‘metaphor’ is derived from its Greek word origin ‘metafora’; meta, meaning “after” or “beyond”, and phoros (φορος), meaning “carrier”. Metaphor can thus be understood as ‘transfer’; the physical act of moving, either something or someone, to another place. Similarly, in linguistic metaphors, the figure of speech creates “a change when attributes ordinarily designating one entity are transferred (carried over) to another entity”. (1) Like in the expression “thoughts are the seed of creation”, linguistic metaphors provide us with mental images, “setting the scene before our eyes”, as Aristotle remarks in The Rhetoric.
The rationale that underpins this exhibition is that if linguistic metaphors allow oneself to expand the restrain of conventional language, so do visual metaphors aspire to articulate ideas through the association of visual elements; the “performance of the factual content”. (2) Abstract and immaterial notions like time, perception, memory and identity are explored here through visual forms. Given that metaphors are closely associated with perception and our need to comprehend and discuss such concepts, we could suggest that metaphors pre-exist and are primarily conceived in thought rather than in language.
In this exhibition, students’ diverse concerns and approaches to defining the notion of the word are reflected in the different approaches that are presented. A variety of mediums are used – painting, video, photography and installation, to initiate a dialogue between artistic practice and the slippery pinning down of language.
(1) Feinstein,H.(1982),“Meaning and Visual Metaphor”,Studies in Art Education, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp.45-55
(2) Goldberg, R. (1979), Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, World of Art. p. 121
