By Heidi Trautmann

The road is the art, the road of research, of planning and continuing from one phase to the next. Phase I was in 2007, when the basic thought was born to research the human existence, the very first matter, coming from fire, being born from the womb of the earth. In the catalogue Johann Pillai is in all details going through the six phases of the two artists, explaining their thoughts and travels and their findings, their way of individual artistic expression and manifestation.

The phases were presented at various venues on different occasions throwing lights on the basic idea from different angles, steps carefully taken, steps documented and with historic background, art history and human history. The artists play with the basic form of ARGILLAE giving them different material appearances, philosophical touches, bringing to light any interrelations, watching the development of their ideas through the magnifying glass.

“Down through the centuries they bore witness to the island’s history. Their lives were lived in the unity of a large family. Each protected the outer cover of its own loftily baked form. They were nourished with fire and light. No one heard their whispering songs.” The introduction by Johann Pillai in the catalogue Generation – The Traces of Emin Cizenel and Anber Onar.

I remember the exhibitions in Sidestreets, (No. 318 on my website) here the link to one of my reviews http://www.heiditrautmann.com/category.aspx?CID=3381548667  where the artists had taken their argilla animata to Paris, enlarged photos of famous Parisien buildings, and let them take possession of them: the invasion; those were the pieces raku fired for Phase I. They took them to make connections in niches of society and politics, past and present in many kinds of techniques, with clay, ink, print, photography…and the genealogical tree and now in the Phase VI the argillae animate are in bronze and judging from the photos and the description of the individual steps, they have done the bronze casting themselves. Bronze being at home in Cyprus through the existence of copper. All connected.

A sort of frame offer the big canvasses by Emin Cizenel covered with the ‘marks of fire’, representing a sort of primal state of our earth, soot marks and strewn about the argillae born out of it.

I wonder if the travel of the argillae is going to continue or is the solidification the last one?

The exhibition is on until June 22 at the ArtRooms (opp. The Colony Hotel) from midday until midnight.