Milenko Stevanović’s Closely Observed opens at IN TOTO Gallery

Exhibition Artculturegoing out Nicosia Milenko Stevanović’s Closely Observed opens at IN TOTO Gallery Closely Observed 2 Relevant News Milenko Stevanović’s Closely Observed opens at IN TOTO Gallery 10 September 2026 Hannah Rowan: Carriers 10 September 2026 Vakia Stavrou: Concert by the Walls 10 September 2026 newsroom 10 September 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber ABR presents Closely Observed, a solo exhibition by Serbian artist Milenko Stevanović, opening at IN TOTO Gallery Space in Nicosia on Wednesday, September 17. Curated by Constantinos Kyprianou, the show brings together seven works made between 2021 and 2026, tracing Stevanović’s first years living in Cyprus. Opening: Thursday, September 17, 2026, 19:00 Exhibition runs: September 17–October 15, 2026 Where: IN TOTO Gallery Space, 8A Kanari Street, Agioi Omologites, 1080 Nicosia Working hours: Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 17:00–19:30; Saturday, 10:00–13:00 Also open during Laou Laou on Sunday, September 20, 10:00–13:00 and 15:30–19:30. About the exhibition The show is built around a simple idea: that looking is never really one-directional. We tend to think of observation as something one person does to another, an artist looking, a sitter being looked at, but Stevanović’s work argues the opposite happens the longer a portrait takes to make. Painting from life stretches out over hours and sittings, and somewhere in that duration, the line between who’s observing and who’s being observed starts to blur. Attention runs both ways. For Stevanović, a sitter is less a finished subject than a starting point. Each portrait becomes a negotiation, between structure and instinct, closeness and distance, discipline and feeling, worked out over the time artist and sitter spend together. That time is what lets a straightforward likeness give way to something harder to pin down, a way of seeing built out of colour, weight, rhythm and light rather than resemblance alone. Nothing in the show is quick. The works are built up slowly, through repetition and revision, so what they hold onto isn’t a single moment but the whole span of an encounter. The people in them stay recognisable, but they’ve been reshaped by the painter’s sustained attention until they’re inseparable from the process that made them. The title works on two levels at once. Each piece is the product of close observation, but the exhibition as a whole is also a quiet look at Stevanović’s own life since settling in Cyprus, the friends, family and daily routines that have come to define it. Taken together, the seven works read less as a set of individual portraits than as a portrait of closeness itself, of the people and spaces that have shaped a life on the island. A self-portrait closes the loop. The person doing the observing steps into the frame, and looking turns back on itself: what starts as attention paid to others ends up, inevitably, as a form of self-examination. About the artist Milenko Stevanović was born in Belgrade, Serbia. He holds an MA in Graphic Arts from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade and an MA in Oil Painting from Tokyo University of the Arts. He is an active member of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia (ULUS) and Cyprus’s Visual Artists and Art Theorists Association (Phytorio). His work has featured in juried exhibitions in Cyprus and internationally, most recently at the Derwent Art Prize and in exhibitions held by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours and the Royal Watercolour Society. Parallel events Wednesday, September 24, 19:00: Stevanović in conversation with Diomedes KoufterosFriday, October 2, 19:00: Guided tour with Michael Pavlides Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Hannah Rowan: Carriers Vakia Stavrou: Concert by the Walls Social media now Cypriots’ top source for news, survey finds UNFICYP pledges more visible Deneia presence to curb violations CCTV, DNA and tip-off lead police to Germasogeia shooting suspects Kira Perov: “Through his work, Bill explored the profound mysteries of life” Clinic where Mazonakis was treated before death not licensed for procedure, medical bodies say Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.