If the “experience which is passed on from mouth to mouth is the source from which all storytellers have drawn”, then for the artist, the source is the non-verbal experience, in other words that experience which is pas- sed on through the senses, from body to body. For that reason, I per- ceive and approach my world as a multi-sensorial monument, an enchanting amalgam of images, sounds, textures, tastes and smells. My thoughts, but also my works, are based on a more practical perception of life rather than an abstract philosophy or higher morality. In this way, I perpetually nourish my personal narrations…
Kyriaki Costa

Biography

Kyriaki Costa was born in 1971 in Nicosia, Cyprus.

She studied Byzantine and Applied Arts in Greece and the United Kingdom. She received her Masters degree in Art from Kingston University, London.

She is a member of the Cyprus Chamber of Fine Arts and the Cyprus Fashion Designers Association. In 2006, she participated in the Saint Etienne Biennale exhibition in France, where she received the public’s prize. In the same year, she represented Cyprus at the Cairo Biennale with the piece “Sweet Land”; the Cyprus delegation received the ‘Best Pavilion Prize’. In 2008, she received a Pancyprian prize at “????????-Weavings-Dokuma”, a competition organized by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Cyprus Chamber of Fine Arts, for the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.

In 2009, she is presenting her work “Presence in Absence” in the center of contemporary art Diatopos in Nicosia and with the same work she received the first prize PAD International Award in Italy, for the “Mediterranean Between Present and Future” Competition. The work was presented at the International Design contest in 2009.
In the same year, her work “Presence in Absence” participated in the exhibition “Migrations”, curated by Heather Kourris, curator of the Apex Gallery in New York.

In 2010, she participated in the International Contemporary Art Fair of Athens, ART-ATHINA, under the umbrella of the Center of Contemporary Arts, Diatopos.

In the same year, Costa participated in the International Triennial of Tapestry, Poland, and in the “Kypriaka”, a competition for the upgrading of the quality of Cypriot souvenirs, in which two of her proposals were selected amongst the first five.

In 2010 she is having a solo show at the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia.
In 2011, she participated in the group exhibition “Between you and me and the wall” at the Omicron gallery in Nicosia. In the same year she participates in the exhibition ” The location of culture ” at the Pulchri studio, Hague, Netherlands and in the project “United States of Europe” , USE. The USE exhibition will tour to the following European cities; Lodz, Vilnius, Helsinki Sofia, Nicosia, Torres Vedras (Lisbon), Berlin, Brussels, Cork, Paris between September 28 2011 and spring 2013.

She has participated in many group exhibitions and international art fairs. Her videos have been used as teaching material at the University of the Aegean and since 2010, she teaches part-time Conceptual and Critical Arts at the School of Arts and Education Sciences of the European University, Cyprus.
Since 2005, she regularly collaborates with theatre and dance performers, as a costume and visual designer.
In parallel with her work as an artist, Kyriaki Costa works as a fashion designer, active both locally and internationally.

She is married and has two daughters.