Meet the Muralist

This year Almyra invited local artist Yiannis Sakellis to paint seasonal murals on the street-facing side of its front garden wall. As the seasons change, he covers the mural of the passing season and heralds the next season with a new one. Recently, he completed the Fall mural depicting leaves blowing across contrasting orange and white backgrounds. Yiannis was born in Pafos in 1983 and started painting at the age of 15. Encouraged by his instructors, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts ‘Pietro Vannucci’ in Perugia, Italy; he graduated with honours in 2007 and returned home to establish his studio practice. He works in many media. In some pieces, he uses thread, rethinking the canvas background of most paintings as a medium of expression. In 2016, for example, he created ‘Capella’, a dome of string filtering the light from a window in the ceiling of Almyra’s Lobby. His film ‘The Box’ was screened at the Fine Arts Film Festival in Venice, California. He has presented three solo exhibitions in Cyprus and participated in group exhibitions here and in Italy and Moldova. He is very active in the local arts scene, having directed the Street Art Square Festival that brought many murals to the Old Town area and curated many exhibitions; ‘Thresholds of Life’ is on display at Almyra through 11 November. He can often be found at Kimonos Art Center, which he helped found in 2015; it brings art classes to the public and serves as a creative hub.