Lefteris Olympios

Lefteris Olympios: THE CYPRUS DRAWINGS
5 March – 9 April 2022

The exhibition was opened by:

The Ambassador of Cyprus to The Netherlands
H.E. Mrs. Frances-Galatia Lanitou Williams


The Suzanne Biederberg Gallery is delighted to exhibit once again the art of Lefteris Olympios, now with his first solo exhibition of his most recent work, The Cyprus Drawings. Born and raised in Limassol, Cyprus, he attended the School of Fine Arts in Athens and completed his studies in the Netherlands, where he has lived and worked since 1984.

These past two years during the Covid lockdown, Olympios found hope again through creating The Cyprus Drawings during two extended visits to his native country Cyprus. There he found solace, sitting alone at a small table with just paper, ink, and tempera. As he writes, “I was sitting at the table in front of my paper and materials and I was letting my hand and heart lead me to where they wanted to be”. This led to the creation of almost one hundred works on aquarelle paper, each 30×42 cm, his inspiration coming from his long interest in historical and contemporary events—political, social and religious—derived from history, legends, memories, and writings.

Over decades, Olympios has developed a distinctive artistic language, expressed through a number of recognizable characteristics, using a simplicity of line and form to strip images down to bare essentials, a sketchy style, an economical handling of space and composition, and a strong color palette.

Unlike his previous painting series and public commissions, these works on paper have no particular theme or subject—often more impressionistic, spontaneous, poetic, with humor, light clear colors, and repetitive background patterns.

Olympios exhibits widely in the Netherlands and internationally, and represented Cyprus in the 47th Venice Biennale with the series of paintings, ’Philoxenia”.

His work has gained considerable international recognition and is included in many private and corporate collections including The Byzantine Museum, Athens, Greece, The National Gallery of Contemporary Art, Nicosia, Cyprus, The International Criminal Court, The Hague, The Netherlands, The FKP Collection, Athens, Greece, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague, The Netherlands, and The E. Dervos Collection, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Lefteris Olympios is represented by the Suzanne Biederberg Gallery in The Netherlands and Gloria Gallery in Cyprus.

With the kind support of the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in the Hague.

The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Niente Rijnberg.