Kika Pierides has become one of the most resonant creative voices linking Cyprus and London, not only through her exhibitions and residencies, but through the language she has carved out for her work.
As the artist who coined the term Contemporary Patternism, she has given shape to a practice rooted in intuition and personal transformation. In both title and philosophy, her work reflects an evolving relationship between visual pattern and emotional experience.
Intuition as language, colour as mirror
Pattern, for Kika, began as fascination. At fourteen, she encountered M.C. Escher’s Libellula, a print so precise and fluid it left an imprint on her imagination. Years later, that same fascination re-emerged not as imitation, but as a new vocabulary. In the space between symmetry and feeling, she found a way to create work that listens as much as it speaks.
“Patternism is the bow that ties it all together,” she says, describing how her method moves in the present tense. Shapes emerge through touch, intuition, and emotional flow, never planned in advance, yet unmistakably deliberate in their rhythm.
That rhythm has always been tied to nature. On her daily walks, the landscape provides a silent but constant presence. Kika draws from the lines of walking paths, the sound of the wind, the movement of breath itself. These elements don’t inspire individual works, but instead they infuse the entirety of her process. In the studio, creation begins with stillness. She enters a state where time falls away and awareness turns inward. From there, colours, fragments, and forms begin to assemble themselves.
In 2017, the loss of her father and a period of illness brought her practice into sharper focus. Searching for balance, she turned to art again as a form of restoration. One afternoon, in a moment of instinct, she walked into a local shop and picked up a children’s colour pack.
The simplicity of collage and its playfulness offered the right pace. She began assembling and reassembling offcuts of her landscapes, trusting her hands more than her thoughts. Colour became both companion and catalyst, sometimes overwhelming in its intensity, often surprising in its tenderness.
Workshops followed. Exhibitions opened. And slowly, her process of quiet healing expanded into spaces where others could reconnect with their own stories. During her solo exhibition, A Language of Healing at The Gallery at the Playroom, she led sessions where participants shared memory, struggle, and reflection.
In these sessions, Kika offered something beyond technique: the chance to return to oneself through creative movement. “You can’t really teach someone how to simply be,” she reflects. “But you can open the door.”
A space for healing
Continuing her commitment to art as a form of healing, Kika has recently been welcomed as the Artist in Residence at A Space Between, a London-based organization that provides creative resources to hospitals and clinics. Her practice, with its uplifting collages and rhythmic forms, is shaped by memories of her grandmother, a wartime potter, and the transformative power of making.
For this collaboration, Kika contributed to an "Activity Book," inviting others to embrace spontaneity through thoughtful, collage-based exercises. Her activities, which involve instinctively cutting and composing, offer a beautiful way for people to quiet their minds and reconnect with themselves. Her work, with its warmth and energy, is now woven into programmes for hospitals, GP clinics, and outpatient units across the country, providing creative pauses for hundreds of patients, healthcare staff, and people at home.
Today, Kika builds her life and practice around a sense of continuity. Yin yoga, long walks, and pattern-based creation form part of a daily rhythm that supports both her wellbeing and her output.
To those beginning their own journey into creativity and healing, she offers a gentle nudge toward instinct. “Think less. Act more,” she says. For her, the breakthrough lies in release, in giving space to that quiet inner voice before it’s filtered, explained, or refined. In the hands of Kika Pierides, pattern becomes a language, colour becomes a mirror, and art becomes a slow return to the self.
A rooted return
One of the most formative shifts in her artistic identity came during a stay in Cyprus in 2023. Initially accepted into a formal residency at the Cyprus College of Art, she found herself at odds with the setting. Rather than retreating, she relocated to Nicosia and began working independently, producing a series of blind embossings. That self-initiated shift reconnected her to Cyprus as a contributor to its cultural fabric.
She began developing new relationships with the art community and later connected with the Cultural Section of the Cypriot High Commission. These moments helped her move past the idea of a split identity. Instead of viewing herself as a second-generation Londoner removed from her roots, she stepped into a more grounded role as an artist in dialogue with both places.
Throughout her journey, from her early studies at Central Saint Martins and Wimbledon School of Art to her time as a commercial photographer and educator, art has remained a form of balance. What once felt like separate phases now feel like pieces of one practice. Each medium, whether latex sculpture, digital photography, or hand-cut collage, served as a vessel for clarity. Even her years in the education system, which contributed to poor health, eventually redirected her back to the heart of her work: the act of making as a means of healing.
Explore more
To view Kika Pierides’ work, visit kikapierides.com or follow her on Instagram at @kikapierides. You may also attend her upcoming art fairs:
- Highgate Art Fair: November 7th–9th, 2025
- Fresh Art Fair: January 30th–February 1st, 2026