About
Electra Varnava was born on July 20, 1988, in Limassol, Cyprus.
She graduated from the Department of Visual and Applied Arts at the School of Fine Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2006–2011), where she studied on a scholarship awarded by the Cyprus State Scholarship Foundation (IKY).
She has participated in various group exhibitions, including the 15th Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean – Symbiosis, and has received several awards in art competitions both in Cyprus and abroad.
At the age of ten, she began attending private art lessons in Limassol. Encouraged by her mother, she started participating in art competitions, earning numerous distinctions. One of the most significant early milestones in her artistic journey came in 2002, when she won a trip to Rome through a youth art competition organized by the Youth Board of Cyprus, at just 14 years old. This was her first competition and marked the beginning of her artistic path. In the same year, she won first place in the Agros Youth Art Competition. Within two years (2004), she earned distinctions in a European art contest, and later that year, she won first prize at the art competition organized by the Cultural Movement “Epilogi” in Limassol. In 2005, she received third place in a national Greek competition, and in 2006 she won third place in the Cyprus Anti-Drugs Poster Contest, as well as first place once again at the “Epilogi” Art Competition. Ιn October 2015, she participated in the VERA World Fine Art Festival in Lisbon, where she received an award in drawing for her “Diligence and Professionalism.”
Her first participation in a (student) group exhibition was in 2005, at the age of 17, where 50% of the proceeds were donated to charity. Notably, the Minister of Justice and Public Order attended the event and purchased one of her paintings.
During her university years, Electra took part in several group exhibitions, including the 15th Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean – Symbiosis.
After graduating in 2011, she returned to Cyprus and established her own studio. She also guided many students in preparing their portfolios and gaining admission to art universities of their choice. While teaching, she continued to explore her own artistic identity. Her love for the harmony of nature, combined with her emphasis on proportion and structure in drawing, drew her closer to realism — a style for which she developed a deep appreciation.
Her first solo exhibition, titled “ART VS CULTURE,” was held at Rouan Gallery in Limassol in 2014, where she presented a series of pencil drawings. As she describes it:
“The emotions my works can evoke in people are what matter most to me. I don’t place particular emphasis on the subject itself and I refuse to be considered ‘conceptual.’ I want the average viewer to understand my work and not leave feeling confused. Some of my pieces may appear overly controlled due to their realistic approach, but the creative process is exactly the opposite. My drawings begin as a series of lines and smudges that I blur or erase by hand until they gradually take shape. My ease with the pencil comes from sharp observation and from learning to value the abstract. My pencils are as important to my process as my erasers. Pencil is the most economical medium — yet also one that can easily be underestimated. The subtlety it allows and the sharpness of the final result drew me toward it. It imposes no real cost on the artist but carries the emotional cost of creation. I don’t draw realistically to create an illusion of reality; I embrace a modern approach — using the real as a tool for creation, not for concealing art.” (2014)
ART VS CULTURE
1st solo exhibition
Opening speech by
Mr. Panos Ioannides
To begin, let me state the obvious: I am neither an art critic nor an amateur painter. During my high school years, our art teacher, the late Diamantis, encouraged and prepared me to study art. However, after the intervention of another great teacher, Nikos Kranidiotis, I made a definitive turn toward the art of writing. Since then, painting has felt like a lover I betrayed—a captivating beloved I abandoned—and I often wonder if, when faced with that dilemma, I made the right choice.
Electra's honorable invitation to inaugurate her exhibition deeply moved me. It reminded me of my long-lost love for painting, which is why I gladly accepted. And here I am tonight, among distinguished art lovers, admiring and honoring the work of a young artist who, it is evident, made the right career choice from the very start.
I first encountered Electra’s work toward the end of last year when my daughter, Irena, who is responsible for the artistic direction of the English-language cultural magazine In Focus that I publish, sent me some of her drawings and paintings from Toronto for publication. At the time, Electra was unknown to both of us.
The artwork that appeared on my computer screen captivated me instantly. The readers of In Focus, both in its printed edition in Cyprus and its thousands of online visitors, were equally drawn to the plasticity, perfection, grace, beauty, and controlled power of the human body that Electra masterfully depicts in her paintings.
The central theme of this young artist is the perfection of the greatest miracle of creation: the human body! The postures, gestures, and expressions in her work evoke the plasticity and perfection found in the sculptures and paintings of classical antiquity—particularly Greek art—the Renaissance, and the masters of both classical and modern ballet. Elektra explores and refines this theme with persistence and effort, striving, as she herself admits, for "the most complete possible understanding of her works, created with pencil, eraser, and ochre, through the critical human eye."
The nude or minimally dressed bodies she paints, usually set against an utterly minimalistic backdrop, fill the surrounding space with pulsating inner strength and controlled emotion. They embody a thoroughly contemporary artistic perception—one that seeks, through the tangible and the concrete, to express and simultaneously evoke emotions by bridging the two major poles of art: abstraction and realism. She achieves this by employing extensive abstraction.
As Electra herself explains, the lines she draws with her pencil, the deliberate, controlled smudges, the erasures, and the blurring she applies in the final stages of her work help her achieve another fundamental goal: transitioning from abstraction to realism and creating pieces that express and evoke emotions through both of these significant artistic axes.
How exactly this is accomplished, and with how much effort, I cannot say. I can only assume that it is the result of painstaking and imaginative practice—something that can only take place within the artist's studio.
Another striking aspect of Electra’s work is that she does not seek spectacular subjects around which to build her images and compositions. It is clear that she does not aim to create the illusion of reality, as photography does. Instead, she endeavors to use reality—the tangible and the visible—to the least possible extent, not to conceal but to reveal the essence of her artistic subjects.
As I imagine her standing in her studio, critically evaluating her work from a distance, tonight, we too stand in admiration—lovers and seekers of the perfection of the youthful, primarily female, body.
It would be an oversight not to mention that the same strength radiates from the faces—both female and male—that Electra paints. The eyes, expressions, gestures, and expressive hands, along with the flowing or tightly wrapped garments that embrace the forms she creates, exude the grace of classical sculpture. In other words, Electra's entire artistic microcosm and the individual works born from her magical pencil radiate an undeniable force.
In closing, I must say how deeply honored and moved I am by Electra and the Rouan Gallery’s invitation to inaugurate this exhibition. I accepted because I wanted, in my simple words as an ordinary art lover, to convey the profound impact that my first encounter with her work—on my computer screen last December—had on me.
That initial impression is validated and strengthened tonight, as I stand before her paintings in their true scale—paintings that exude the sensitivity and skill of the hands and soul of this young artist.
Congratulations, dear Electra! I wish you a brilliant career—one that I am certain you will achieve.
Best wishes,
Panos Ioannides
