By Con Charalambous
Μy mind carried me across two centuries and three cities, but exhaustion set in. So, it had me facing the barrel of a firing squad, asking me:
-Where are you going Sotos Gonios? QUO VADIS?
I was displaced from Varosha, settled as a refugee in Larnaca and now live in Limassol.
-This is it?
I didn’t know how else to respond. ‘I am not into fancy writing.’
‘But I can paint! I can sing! That comes easy to me. Like breathing.’
-So where are you going then? QUO VADIS?
The easy answer was to paint it!
It took me three years to respond.
I opened up the paints and brushes cupboard along with the gates of imagination. As it happens, many actually fit in there. Personalities I admired, beings that terrified me and people I once adored.
Ι did not actually pick them. They chose me. We sailed together on a small boat. The thief and the bum travelling together, as Nionios (Greek singer Dionysis Savvopoulos) says.
Che Guevara and Adolph Hitler, Marilyn and Einstein, Maradona and the Pope, Dali and Beethoven, Chaplin and Karagiozis, Zuckerberg and Kolokotronis.
Life takes some strange corners! Kolokotronis wielding his large knife and Mark with a laptop in his palm. Surreal images of different times.
And Karagioz, always holding a mirror to our face.
So we can terrify ourselves.
Think about us and cry.
Look at us and laugh.
Why are we laughing?
That’s because our lives are the here and now and our children will share tomorrow.
And our sun will shine above our heads for at least another 15 million years!
So that’s where we’re going!
Someone had to write all this down and get it right. And I knew just the one. A friend and a brother for more than half a century. Great writer, journalist, lyricist and poet. Andreas Paraschos. So I picked up the phone. ‘I’ve been painting for three years-lost in people, faces, cities, love affairs and time itself. I don’t know where all this is going’. ‘Don’t worry’, he says. ‘I don’t know either, but it’s called life! So make us some coffee. I am on my way’.
Andreas Paraschos: ‘The coffee aroma takes the room. The artist tries to say something, but I gesture him to silence. I was conversing with his creations at the time. The pieces of his soul. I’ve known him for 50 years. We all have a thief inside us, a bum, a Che Guevara and a Hitler! Think about it! And what’s more, we’re all a Monroe, a Dali and a Charlie Chaplin.’
And that being said, we’re definitely, more or less, karagiozides!
So as often happens on invitation, love and appeal, a baby, a painting or a poetic union is born.
And as you might have guessed my dear friends our poetic composition is aptly named:
QUO VADIS?
‘A Barcarole of Sinful Saints!’.
This is most definitely an invitation.
Join us on 14th November, at 1930, our host being Limassol’s AMARA hotel, where Sotos Gonios will present his exhibition
‘QUO VADIS’ and the poetry collection
‘A BARCAROLE OF SINFUL SAINTS’
By journalist-poet, ANDREAS PARASCHOS
Inspired by the works of SOTOS GONIOS.
The exhibition will be opened by Bank of Cyprus Oncology Centre CEO Panos Ergatoudis, as part of the proceeds will go towards caring for patients.
It will remain open until November 17th, 1100-2200 at Amara Hotel, Limassol, our host.
PS.
Award winning photographer Rikkos Gregoriou has set up an exhibition of Gonios works at Iroon Square, currently under renovation. It will be open on the same days.
Everyone is welcome. Whether you’re interested, curious, or just passing through!
CONTACT NUMBERS
GONIOS-97755403 sotos.c.gonios@gmail.com
PARASCHOS-99432845 paraschos.andreas@gmail.com