Moufflon presents:
'The Fabric of the Ancient Theatre' 04/04

by N. McMorran

Moufflon Bookshop continually informs, surprises and entertains its customers and visitors with its diverse displays that expose significant connections between the visual, applied and literary arts. From the recent pornography inspired installation 'Let him watch' by Haris Pellapaisiotis, that cunningly questionned viewers' visual interpretations "under the spell of consumerism", to a contrasting world of interwoven journies and cultures in the current exhibition of works by Diana Wood Conroy.
Diana is a visual artist, archaeologist and ethnographer. She is associate professor at the Wollongong University's Creative Arts Faculty, and Coordinator of the 'Centre for Research of Image, Performance and Text', in Australia.

As a significant member of the Pafos Theatre Excavations, with Sydney University’s department of Classical Archaeology, Diana spent the past seven years documenting and studying Roman Fresco from the theatre. Conroy’s artist-in-residence at the excavations of ‘Fabrika Hill’, Pafos, inspired her to further explore this theme in Egypt, Greece and Turkey.

These experiences have been recorded through Diana’s intricate journals which now come together to make up the body of her book: “The Fabric of the Ancient Theatre”, Moufflon’s latest publication.
“Dr Wood Conroy’s writing is scholarly and personal, intensely focused and deeply eclectic. This is a book about the past and the present, memory and loss, permanence and the ephemeral.” (Moufflon Publications 2004).

In addition to her numerous published works, including essays on contemporary textiles, art practice and Aboriginal issues, Conroy is renowned for her tapestries that express rich associations with Aboriginal tradition and many of which are held in international collections.

The series of works, currently on show at Moufflon’s Lefkosia bookshop, merge text with textile confirming the artist’s intention that “to weave a thread and draw out a story may be part of the same process” (D.W.Conroy).
The page-sized wool and silk tapestries are inspired by the artist’s own diaries written of her experiences working on an Aboriginal Community, in the Tiwi Islands, Northern Australia; and equally by patterns from early Cypriot representations of textiles found on stone and terracotta figurines.

In much of her work Diana fuses the traditions of these two ancient cultures with her own personal direct experiences which is clearly communicated through the timeless woven pieces she produces.
“In the Tiwi Islands ‘literature’ is part of an oval tradition where spoken and sung ceremonies accompany the making of vivid visual painting” (D.W.Conroy). Similarly, Diana’s work illustrates how text and visual pattern work together as one to communicate experience and memories, and proves significant connections between distant cultures.

Diana Wood Conroy’s work is now on display at the Moufflon Bookshop until the end of April and her publication ‘The Fabric of the Ancient Theatre’ is now available to purchase.

For more info please contact the bookshop:
1, Sofouli Street, Lefkosia
Tel: +357 22665155
E-mail: bookshop@moufflon.com.cy
Website: www.moufflon.com.cy