Born: 1943 Eptakomi, Cyprus
Year of Migration to the UK: 1946
Biography
Painter, John Kiki was born in the village of Eptakomi, near the city of Famagusta in Cyprus on 9 May 1943. He immigrated with his family to London, England in 1946. His fine art education began at Camberwell College of Arts, where he studied from 1960 to 1964 under the guidance of Robert Medley and the German-born emigre painter Frank Auerbach. Following their mentorship and on Auerbach's recommendation, Kiki pursued further education at the Royal Academy Schools in London from 1964 to 1967, where he obtained a Post-Graduate Certificate. In 1970, Kiki married Mary Papalouca. In 1974, they permanently moved from London to Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England and Kiki established his studio there. Between 1973 and 1979, he temporarily shifted his focus to the restaurant industry before resuming his career in painting and exhibiting. In 2001, he briefly maintained a studio in New York, USA.
Kiki’s practice draws inspiration form Mediterranean culture and classical mythology, as well as his upbringing in seaside towns in England. His oeuvre consists primarily of large and small-scale paintings and photocollages with acrylic interventions. His continuously evolving style blends elements of figuration, organic abstraction, and Pop Art into a cohesive fusion, his images regularly presenting the expressive, direct and cartoon-like quality of children’s paintings, alongside the bold and uninhibited use of colours and simple shapes. While Kiki’s style is non-naturalistic, it features easily distinguished figures set against minimalistic and flat backgrounds. He draws heavily from his Greek Cypriot heritage, blending themes from Greek mythology and history genre paintings with seaside legends and everyday human interactions. His works often include modern interpretations of mythological subjects, such as Zeus and Europa, Leda and the Swan, alongside contemporary figures, such as Mickey Mouse amid scenes of daily life. A recurrent motif is the Infanta - the term ‘Infante’, present in Spain and Portugal, refers to royal children, both sons and daughters (infantas), irrespective of age - ispecifically nspired by Diego Velásquez's famed Las Meninas, which Kiki has reinterpreted in numerous versions. Auerbach, an enduring influence, alongside watercolour artist Patrick Procktor, inspired Kiki to transition from his initial precise style to the more relaxed, flowing approach that now characterises his work. Kiki’s work also shows influences from Francis Bacon, Georg Baselitz, Willem de Kooning, Henri Matisse's later oeuvre, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock and abstract expressionism, and Euan Uglow, as well as painters from earlier periods, such as El Greco. Kiki's work has also been linked to Middle Eastern decorative patterns, while his use of the arabesque is reminiscent of Byzantine art.
Kiki's first solo exhibition was held in 1973 at the Thackeray Gallery in Kensington, London. His paintings were described by the local press as owing 'much to his taste and knowledge of established masters, from Toulouse Lautrec to Jackson Pollock […]. His [Kiki’s] strength is an obsessional preoccupation with quality of material, a richness of colour and a liner rhythm, rapid, explosive, integrating subject matter with paint, giving to the works they own inherent value. Kiki is a private, not a public artist: his message is humanistic, and optimistic […],’ (Chelsea News and General Advertiser, 1973, p. 11). In 1989, he featured in In the Artist’s Eye, a BBC Television series by Franco Rosso. His solo exhibition JOHN KIKI: Myths and Goddesses, which opened in 2014 in London’s Art Space Gallery in Islington, was a take on classical mythology and Christian themes. In 2018 he presented JOHN KIKI: Fifty Years in the Figurative Fold at Mandells Gallery, Norwich. Kiki has also worked on commission projects. The company Art Esprit commissioned a series of paintings inspired by the Carmina Burana poems for the exhibition The Carmina Burana Experience at the Barbican Centre in London (1996–97). John Kiki lives and works in Great Yarmouth, England, where he continues to exhibit his work locally, nationally and internationally, through various gallery representations. In the UK public domain his works are held in several collections, including Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Norwich; National Museum Wales, Cardiff; and the Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool.
Related books
- Laurence Schmidlin, ed., Kiki Smith: Hearing You with My Eyes (Zurich: Scheidegger & Spiess, 2020)
- Keith Roberts, John Kiki: The Infanta Paintings (Norwich: Selwyn Taylor Publishing, 2020)
- Keith Roberts, JOHN KIKI: Fifty Years in the Figurative Fold (Norwich: Selwyn Taylor Publishing, 2018)
- Andrew Lambirth, John Kiki: Myths and Goddesses: Paintings 2014, exh. cat. (London: ArtSpace London, 2014)
- Keith Patrick, ed., The Carmina Burana Experience, exh. cat. (London: Art Esprit Ltd., 1996–97)
- No author, ‘John Kiki: the Orthodox Greek’, Chelsea News and General Advertiser, 13 July 1973, p. 11
Public collections
Related organisations
- Camberwell College of Arts (student )
- Royal Academy Schools (student )
Related web links
- Cypriot Artists Index
- John Kiki’s 50 Years of Painting
- John Kiki: Contemporary and Country
- John Kiki: Gallerie Wahrenberger
- John Kiki: Gallery K Cyprus
- John Kiki: Mandell's Gallery
- John Kiki: Official Page
- John Kiki - The Infants
- National Art Gallery Bulgaria
Selected exhibitions
- Heads & Tails: Picturing People and Other Animals (group show), The Fermoy Gallery and Shakespeare Barn, King's Lynn (2023)
- Great Yarmouth Artists (group show), Contemporary and Country, Great Yarmouth (2022)
- The Infanta Paintings (solo exhibition), The Yare Gallery, Great Yarmouth (2021)
- John Kiki and Darren Barker (dual exhibition), National Gallery Bulgaria, Sofia (2019)
- JOHN KIKI: Fifty Years in the Figurative Fold (solo exhibition), Mandells Gallery, Norwich (2018)
- John Kiki (solo exhibition), Gallery K, Nicosia (2018)
- JOHN KIKI: Myths and Goddesses (solo exhibition), Art Space Gallery, London (2014)
- FLASHBACK (group show), Art Space Gallery, London (2011)
- The Carmina Burana Experience (group show), Barbican Centre, London (1996–97)
- John Kiki (solo exhibition), Thackeray Gallery, London (1973)
