‘Life Like a Horizon’: Nature and Wandering in the Work of Nicos Nicolaides

As one of the two inaugural events of Celadon Center for Arts & Ecologies, the project Life Like a Horizon: Nature and Wandering in the Work of Nicos Nicolaides was presented at the Minerva Hotel, Platres, from February to March 2025.

Curated by Dr Gabriel Koureas and Dr Elena Parpa, it explored the centrality of nature, particularly mountains, in the work of Nicos Nicolaides (1884–1956). At its core was a curated display of paintings and drawings, accompanied by a rich programme of events, including guided tours by the curators, a series of readings with invited collaborators, a drawing workshop, and the symposium Archive Poetics: Working with Artists’ Archives and Estates.

PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS
Bringing together works depicting the Troodos region and Mount Sinai, the curated display examined Nicos Nicolaides’s enduring engagement with landscape, wandering, and place. The works were drawn from the State Collection of Cypriot Art, the Limassol Municipal Gallery, the Famagusta Temporary Municipal Art Gallery—Agia Napa Municipal Museum as well as from private collections.

Known primarily as a writer, Nicos Nicolaides learned to paint through wandering, initially in the Cypriot countryside as an apprentice iconographer and later in Europe, where he earned a living as a street artist. Following his permanent relocation to Egypt in 1924, his relationship to painting continued to be defined by the experience of peregrination. Living ‘under a tent like a Bedouin’, as described in newspapers of the time, he travelled through the Nile Valley and the Sahara Desert. He also visited Mount Sinai twice—in 1927 and 1930. His works from the region reflect his fascination with the biblical landscape, where rugged and steep mountains convey a transcendental quality while serving as places for personal redemption.

On his trips to Cyprus, Nicolaides used to visit Platres, reportedly drawing the landscape of the surrounding area alongside his friend, the Egyptian painter Mohammed Naghi (1888–1956). In his drawings, the mountainous Troodos region, more familiar and less dramatic than the Sinai landscape, becomes a site for studying and observing nature.

The display at the Minerva Hotel—a space that resonates with themes of travel and wandering—sought to highlight the artist’s connection to the natural landscape of the area while emphasising his wanderlust, which he equated in his prose to the longing for ‘a quiet life […] with nature as a companion’.

READING CYCLE I
Nicos Nicolaides’ book collection survives in part in the Mastri Archive. The collection includes prose, poetry, and essays by prominent Greek and Cypriot writers. Selected titles from the archive accompanied Nicolaides’s work in the exhibition and were complemented by a series of readings that connected the artistic and literary interpretations of nature in his work. With the participation of Maria Ioannou, Stavros Stavrou Karayianni, Sofronis Sofroniou and Eleni Xenou. Language: Greek

READING CYCLE II
Words hover, horizons fall
Fisherwomxn (Seta Astreou Karides, Miriam Gatt, and Ioulita Toumazi) were invited to go through the books found in Nicos Nicolaides’s library by women authors. These books and their authors maintain a ghostly relationship to Nicolaides as they found their way in the library as gifts, perhaps as signs of a friendship, yet we don’t know if Nicolaides ever read them, if he was touched by them, if he knew all the authors personally, or if their writing resonated and affected his own. We can only speculate on a fictional narrative, potential friendships and interconnectedness. Taking these texts as subtle cracks in the library, or as silent witnesses, we allow them to become navigation points guiding us to explore how they may expand one’s life beyond the horizon. The event unfolded as an afternoon of wandering in the landscape of Platres, activating these literary texts through a walking-score that grapples with the concept of the horizon as both a physical line in the landscape and a constructed boundary between the known and unknown. 

DRAWING WORKSHOP
Conceived in response to the work of Nicos Nicolaides, the workshop was developed and implemented by artist Leontios Toumpouris. It was open to adults with or without previous drawing experience. 

SYMPOSIUM
Archive Poetics: Working with Artists’ Archives and Estates
A considerable number of works by Nicos Nicolaides are today considered lost or untraceable, raising significant questions about preserving the tangible and intangible heritage of artists, especially within the context of Cypriot visual art, where institutions for studying and promoting cultural production, such as a national museum of modern and contemporary art, have yet to be established. What remains of an artist’s vision and influence when much of their work is no longer accessible? What research and curatorial approaches can be developed in response? What historical knowledge is produced when based on discontinuity and gaps?

These and other questions were explored in the symposium Archive Poetics: Working with Artists’ Archives and Estates, where researchers, curators, and artists discussed practices and tools for managing, preserving, and promoting artistic archives and legacies. With the participation of Elena Papadopoulos, Nadia von Maltzahn, Anna Schäffler, Ioulita Toumazi and AnnaMaria Charalambous. Language: English