Delving into the art of collage and its process as an act of cutting, reassembling, storytelling and reflecting, artist Liza Petridou presents a new exhibition this month. Nicely Cut, thanks opens this Friday at E.KA.TE in Nicosia, inviting the public to explore reassembled visual territories.

Adopting a play of cuts, layers and reconnections, the exhibited pieces explore how fragmentation becomes transformation and how what is broken finds new form. The process of collage in this exhibition looks at the relationship between the body, memory and imagination, transforming cut pieces into something new.

“Life cuts and reassembles us again and again,” say organisers, “deep cuts, shallow cuts, clean cuts or ragged cuts that leave scars and shape who we are. Everyday cuts — in relationships, decisions, losses. Like jump cuts in a film, life’s moments shift from scene to scene, letting the gaps speak.

“Liza Petridou uses fragments of photographs, animal imagery, architectural forms and everyday objects, composing them into new, unexpected configurations. These forms often exist in an in-between state: bodies transforming, faces hiding or multiplying, architectural structures appearing alive. Birds, eyes and hybrid creatures act as symbols of freedom, observation and desire, while also carrying a sense of fragile balance. For the artist, collage is a way to confront fragmentation — to cut, to shift, to reattach; to observe how the broken never returns as it was, but carries its traces and gives birth to something new.”

Nicely Cut, thanks

Exhibition by Liza Petridou. November 7-18. E.KA.TE., Nicosia. Opening night: 7pm-10pm. Daily: 10.30am-2pm, 4pm-8.30pm. @lizaa.petridou