Rinos Stefani

Rinos Stefani articulates a robust idiom with the Mediterranean idiosyncrasy of a gestural expressionism, through his exuberant colour and his dynamic curves, triangles, rectangles, crosses and trapezoids, which engender a magic, transcendental infinity in space. His series of happenings and installations “Human – Targets”, “Soldiers – Targets” trigger his aim at transcribing, in painterly means, the impetuous temperament of Zorba, as an embodiment of motion and of inborn sensuality, into dancers, lovers, acrobats and planters. With bold, rich brushstrokes, he embarks upon an exploration of blues, reds and yellows, the subtler tonalities of white and the gradations of brown and tan, abstracting through successive layers, erasing, thus, the immaterial and revealing the quintessence of the people, the landscape and the light of Cyprus.

Always continuing the endless and dangerous journey of love, walking on stretched rope, as another acrobat, Rinos Stefani tries to balance his art and reality, no matter how hard this might be a struggle for dignity and freedom.

“Amacayacu” is the title of his new work. This strange title comes rather out of his recent journeys to the Amazon river, in China and elsewhere. The human figure predominates once again. Man and the tree are the two main elements of his new work; trees that shrink into mere trunks like the values of our lives.

When I saw Rinos Stefani’s paintings many years ago, what impressed me most was the sincerity, which runs through all his work. He still has this effusive directness, which gives his work, power and freshness. He continuously simplifies, keeps what’s important and necessary, the rest disappears. This process requires daring and strong temperament from the part of the artist.

Rinos Stefani is well traveled and many of these "places" are brought into his work. Human figure has been for years the center of his paintings. His lovers, acrobats, dancers move by an inner energy to conquer space and time and they do so with anguish, passion and impetuousness. The paintings of the erotic series brandish intense emotional vibrations, full of eroticism and youthful exuberance. Love without guilt, far from hypocrisies and inhibitions. His visual language comes to a sensual peak and reveals unseen aspects of human experience. He plays with opposites with spontaneity, directness and an unbridled passion. His restless spirit and fertile curiosity turn his images of ordinary things into metaphors of metaphysical phenomena of life and death.

Rinos Stefani is challenging the viewing of tradition both in form and theme. His well-laboured thrust creates at best daring combinations of colour attracting and sustaining the eye. Although the artist himself attributes much of his themes to the rural life of his home region, Paphos, he is not offering us static descriptions but dynamic compositions suggesting lyricism on the part of the artist. This young painter is genuinely in search of art in Cyprus.

The best thing about the paintings by Rinos Stefani is that he knows how to use colour to give spacial structure to his imagery. This is a gift indeed. Even inspired teaching and a real understanding of post cubist art cannot fully give the young artist that ability. You have it or you haven't. Rinos has, in abundance.

But then Rinos Stefani has what the English call 'the courage of his convictions'. What gives his work its real quality is his ability to reinvent - he tries to find the vocabulary that does not merely present us with a description. He does not simply invite us to look at the subject - we cannot disregard the picture - as a dynamic and dramatic composition which enhances and adds to our perception of the subject matter. For instance his Uprooting (Graham Hamilton Prize 1983) is about a particular event, it effects us because it tells us about a specific human tragedy, but at the same time it evokes a deeper response which comes out of a sense of suffering humanity. The picture has 'depth' in both senses of the word which is what makes it a work of art.