Artist’s cv
Spyros Dimitriadis was born in Limassol on November 29, 1950.
From elementary school he stood out among his classmates for his visual skills. At the age of sixteen and until the time he served in the national guard, he was presented twice by RIK, in the program “To Periodiko mas” (1968 and 1969), with Leonidas Maleni as presenter, to show two of his first animated films.
In September 1969 he went to Prague to study and in 1970 after learning the Czech language he studied History of Art and Theater at Charles University. In the second year of his studies, he simultaneously attended, on probation in the first year, the specialized workshop of Graphic Arts for Cinema and Television at the famous Academy of Applied Arts in Prague (VŠUP). Since October 1972, he leaves Charles University and is officially a second-year student at VŠUP. In 1977 he graduated with the title of Academic Painter specializing in Animation.
Return to Cyprus
Upon his return to Cyprus, in November 1977, he became active professionally as a painter. He collaborated with RIK television in illustrations for a children’s program (O Kokos and Kiki) at a rate of two pounds each, until April 1978 when he went to Munich to present his graduation film ‘Cypriot Transformations’ ( Prague, 1977) at the Festival: “Culture Week CYPRUS – MUNICH” (which started from an idea of his fraternal friend, musician and virtuoso pianist, Nikolas Oikonomou). After a four-month stay in Germany, and after painting and selling some works, he returned to Cyprus for good and on October 7, 1978 he opened his first exhibition at the “ZYGOS” Gallery in Limassol.
Despite the success of the exhibition, a month later he founded the advertising agency ECASTICA where he took over the television advertising department. In 1979, with his thesis, the six-minute film (‘Cypriot Transformations’), he took part in the International Animation Film Festival in Annecy, France, the most important animation festival in the world. In October 1980 he left ECASTICA and in December held his second solo exhibition at the “POLYTOPO” Gallery in Limassol.
In 1981, most of the works of the exhibition were included in the Album, “Limesos My Love” in collaboration with the Publishing House “MELISSA”. In January 1982, he exhibited his pen watercolors, with themes from Cyprus, at the “ZYGOS” gallery in Athens. In April of the same year, he was presented at the “GLORIA” gallery with watercolors from Nicosia and in December at the “SUNHALL” Hotel with subjects from Larnaca.
In 1984 he painted in the Principality of Monaco three watercolors with a pen on behalf of an offshore company based in Monaco. In 1985 he took part in a plein air painting in Lefkara and exhibited together with the other plein air artists all their works at the “Foundation” Gallery in Limassol .
In 1987 he represented Cyprus in a three-week international plein air painting in Vilnius, Soviet Republic of Lithuania.
Coffee and Memories
He organized a total of 30 individual exhibitions. Participated in group exhibitions through the Ministry of Education or EKATE abroad. From 1984 to 1996, alongside his other activities, he gave special emphasis to the performance and artistic interpretation of the Cypriot Landscape.
In 1996 he began the large series of works in mixed media (acrylic, collage, oil), “Coffee and Memories”, which remains open to this day.
He made Advertising and educational cartoons and illustrated books. He wrote scenography for the Theater and designed Cypriot commemorative coins. He issued silkscreens for hotels and shipping houses.
In July 2000 he exhibited eight works from the series “Coffee and Memories” in a group exhibition at the Galerie de l’Art in Nice, France where he received favorable comments from the local press.
Views from Vuni
Since August 2000 he has been visiting Vouni, a wine village in the Limassol district, every day, painting views of the village and until December he presented an exhibition at the village school with incredible success both in the number of visitors and in sales of works.
In 2009 He created 16 mixed media works on behalf of Intership Navigation Co Ltd, Limassol which were printed on silkscreens and released as a book – monograph: “Sp. Demetriades, A Journey through Art”.
On May 2, 2012, in Mexico City, he represented the Cypriot engravers, participating with two silkscreens, at the opening of a major exhibition of Cypriot Engraving. The collection was donated to the School of Engraving of the National School of Plastic Arts (ENAP, Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas) of the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, through the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus there, the ‘Museum – Center of Engraving Hampi’ .
In July 2012, par
