The Girl and the Sparrow
A new sculpture has come to Old Paphos. Courtesy of Cypriot artist, Yiota Ioannidou, the piece shows a young girl, sat by an olive tree, with a sparrow in her hands. It is a thing of beauty, I am sure you will agree...
Quoting from Cyprus Mail:
“I want people to talk to each other, to feel something when they see a sculpture and to bring families into spaces, to make our senses work, no matter what the subject is. This is the point of public art,” she said.
She added that her goal as an artist was not to decorate a space, but to make a subject speak to the soul of the people.
Ioannidou said that the title of the piece refers to the sparrow that has chosen to sit so carefully in the girl’s hand, as she gently holds it. She chose to include sparrows as an integral part of the piece as they fly freely, are not caged and are beautiful.
“When we see a child we see hope, the next generation and the future,” she added of the piece.
The upgraded square is part of a massive project which has seen millions of euros invested in the centre of Paphos’ old town.
The new tree was included in the artists project and replaces a huge ancient tree that was uprooted by terrible storms in the area last year, and couldn’t be saved.
Beautiful
I was actually stood here a few weeks ago, taking pictures for our forthcoming website on Old Town Paphos. There was no hint that this was arriving then. So when I heard about the statue I just had to get some more photos, so it could be included in the site.
Front View
The only problem, was that when I came to photograph this, I also found some other interesting things to photograph. I won't be adding them to the new site just yet though. Originally, it was going to contain about 100 panoramic photographs. But every time I visited Old Town to get the photos, I would find new things to see.
Thoughtful, and Peaceful
Now though, there are over 230 panoramas. Old Town is pretty well mapped out. I'm also incorporating a directory (a subset of the main Paphos LIfe directory) so it will hopefully prove very useful to locals and tourists alike.
A Bird In The Hand
It even has a version in Greek, which is why it is taking so long to complete. Even bad Greek translations take time. Fortunately, I was able to add this young lady at the last minute, so she will be there to welcome you when you explore the new site. The other stuff I found will just have to wait...
This is only a short, one page blog, to show the new statue. The planned blog on Anadiou will pop up in a day or two.