Lahd Gallery is proud to present to you the Arabic influenced Greek artist Irini Gonou in A Tale of Two Cultures. Using her teaching from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Ecole des Arts Décoratifs of Paris, Gonou uses sculpture to portray her research in world culture, and the way in which she explores it.

This unique exhibition is an art quest which seeks to address and explore the healing and protective power of the written word as a specific cultural idiom and takes the form of a dialogue between the Greek and Arabic cultures. Using entirely natural materials such as textiles, fired clay, reeds, leaves, seed pods, eucalyptus bark and linen twine, Gonou makes her interpretations of amulets and clothing, magic bowls and talismanic objects whose poetry evoke a new magical language or realm of “written protection”.

The two cultures, Greek and Arabic, with their distinctive indigenous scripts, are seen in dialogue with a continuous and life-affirming exchange and cross-fertilisation of influences.