They say that patience is a virtue. But I’m really not sure that the word ‘patient’ carries enough resonance to characterise Sibylle Pieters. An artist by profession and perfectionist by nature, Sibylle is one of those women who has chosen to do things the hard way to achieve the desired results.

Imagine that you want to draw a tiger. One would only assume that it would involve plenty of shading and attention to the bigger picture as the shape is formed. But these assumptions would be far off if you were to do things the pointillist way - a term first used to describe the work of the French George Seurat.

A big fan of this artistic method focusing on minor details, Sibylle shapes her works through layers and layers of skilfully applied minuscule dots in a process that can take weeks or even months. Hardly surprising considering that her canvas consists of an average 25,000 dots per square inch.

I meet Sibylle in her apartment, greeted by a 44-year-old who looks every inch the typical artist caught in the middle of a creative storm. Her tousled brown hair is softly pinned back, her face is bare and make up free, her jeans hang loose for comfort and her feet are snug in pink fluffy slippers. As for her chunky knitted cardigan, it’s one she made herself.

“I’m just somebody who has to create all the time. If I’m not drawing I’m knitting. It’s my way of escaping from reality.” Sibylle speaks with a decidedly French accent, having grown up in the country soon after she was born in nearby Belgium.

A quick glimpse around her apartment is all the confirmation I need with regards to what she has just told me. Next to the television sits an unfinished brown scarf; in the far corner of the room rests a drawing that is just waiting for the last few touches to perfect the image. The picture is one of a young girl with piercing eyes and full lips that seems to have a hold on you no matter what angle you choose to look at her from.

“Oh, yes, that’s the whole point of the pointillist method. The layering effect means that the image is alive and always different depending at what distance you’re looking at it from,” insists Sibylle. “Pointillism means you create an image that becomes deeper and deeper the further away you look at it from.”

Upon first glace from afar, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the images are computer generated for you would never really imagine that someone has taken the time to fill a 46 by 90 cm canvas with miniscule dots. “It’s all about going over and over and over the dots until I reach the final result I’m happy with,” she says.

Only when viewed up close can the true brilliance of her work be appreciated. The layering allows Sibylle to intensify the shadows and overall chiaroscuro effect, displaying an intensity and directness that can rarely be found in the art world today.

Having moved with her Cypriot husband to the island in 2007, I’m surprised to hear that it was only a few years prior to that (in 2003) that she picked up paper and pen to create systematically.

“It was my teacher at boarding school in France who first taught me this method, when I was eleven,” she says pointing towards two rather remarkable pictures she has framed on her living room wall. “But then I didn’t really touch pointillism as I grew up because life took me in other directions; it was quite by chance that I started again one day when I was bored at home.” Entirely self taught, I’m shocked to hear Sibylle never even went to art school.

It was after losing her job in 2008 that she really decided to concentrate on her drawings. “I totally saw it as a sign,” she enthuses. As luck would have it, things turned out even better than she expected and soon after she unleashed her creative streak, she received a call from the New York’s Agora Gallery wishing to showcase her works (a show which is ongoing at the moment).

“They must have seen my pieces on the internet after an online competition that I entered.” While nothing came of the competition, she’s now preparing for Christmas in Manhattan with works that will hang side by side with upcoming and well established American artists. That’s quite an achievement for someone who has only once exhibited in a small French exhibition some years ago.

Relatively unknown on the local scene here in Cyprus, Sibylle hopes to achieve big things in the near future. But what surprises me the most is that she views success with a very altruistic attitude. “I’ve always wanted to do something for this planet. I mean it’s in such a state isn’t it?” she asks rhetorically. “So I’d like to use the money from sales to embark on humanitarian projects. You know, things like helping children and environmental conservation. If I achieve that I don’t need anything else.”

I suppose it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that Sibylle finds materialism extremely disheartening. After all, she has already voiced concern about the detrimental effects of humanity on the natural world and the way everyone is after their own gain. “Sometimes I’m happier in here with my animals than out there in the real world,” she says as she gives her two dogs a firm pat. But for now, it’s very much the real world that’s beckoning her as she packs her bags and prepares to give the city that never sleeps yet another reason to keep its eyes wide open.