Glyn Hughes 1931 - 2014

145 After the political troubles in Cyprus of the late 1960s, Glyn Hughes was reduced to part-time teaching. He moved to a very beautiful traditional house (cheap to rent in those days) and to make ends meet he wrote film reviews for the Cyprus Mail , read the News and talked on art on radio for the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation. After attending a lecture by Richard Buckminster Fuller (renowned 20th century inventor and visionary) in the late spring of 1971, Glyn says that as he walked home his mind dwelt on the word “synergy”. The result was a series of happenings at his studio: Synergy One: The White Room [summer 1971]; Synergy Two: Katras ( Tar – Pollution ) [summer 1972]; Synergy Three: The Road to Famagusta [summer 1973]. They included installations, paintings, photographs and sound; they also developed into experimental theatre: Songs of Bernadette (based on Bloody Sunday ), O Lefkos Horos ( The White Dance ), which toured the island, and The Humble Goat Show . There was no Synergy Four, which had been scheduled to be held in summer 1974, because of the coup and the Turkish invasion that followed a few days later. In 1973, Glyn also devised a happening for the closing of the Pisces Gallery in Famagusta, entitled Black Canvas , which was about the futility of having ambitions in a small island. Glyn continued to paint, and during the whole of 1974 also worked in batik on a series based on Cypriot Syllabary; this was an Iron Age system of writing unique to Cyprus and found in inscriptions on ancient sites on the island. A student at the English School, Miltos Kyprianou, whose brother had been killed by shooting, wrote a “parable”, entitled Wormer and the Lord , which told of a person taking over a country. Glyn batiked the “parable”, using abstract forms based on the Syllabary. The series was continued through the coup and the invasion. Parachutes, which appear in the series, were observed by Glyn from his studio, landing at dawn, and according to the artist, “their image joined in the Syllabary visuals as casually as daffodils in a poem”. A case of “being there and not being political”. In 1975, an exhibition of the series was opened by Glafcos Clerides. Happenings, Synergies and 1974 [1970–1994]