Norbert Lynton presents a critical appraisal of the artist Stass Paraskos. Once described by The Guardian newspaper as 'a peasant painter', Paraskos has often produced images that seem to tell of village life in his homeland of Cyprus. Painted in rich colours, and using a simplified figurative style, many of his scenes might have almost fallen from the pages of Kazantakis. Yet, as Lynton shows, Paraskos is also a sophisticated artist, educated in the West, but rooted in the East, who has successfully fused the visual traditions of Western Modernism with those of Byzantine Orthodoxy. From this, Paraskos has developed his own artistic language to take on a diverse range of themes, ranging from the political violence and violations of human rights that have marked his countrys history, to religious experience and the often comic follies of modern mass tourism.
