Who is Peter Lyssiotis?

From Cyprus to Australia

Panagiotis John Lyssiotis was born in Cyprus in 1949. A few years later, his family immigrated to Australia, arriving in regional Victoria. After settling in the suburb of East Burwood, Peter attended Greek school, spoke his mother tongue with his parents at home and was part of the growing Greek community and culture established in post-war Melbourne.

His Cypriot-Greek culture is central to his identity and informs much of the work he has produced throughout his careeer. His lived experience as a migrant filtered through work he produced such as the ‘Ethnic Avenger’ series. The logo he devised included brick and trowel and olive branches, in a humorous response to the migrant stereotype.

To learn more about Peter and his works, check out Peter's personal website.

Greek Surrealism

The Surrealist style and political writing of Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos (1909 - 1990) has greatly influenced Lyssiotis’ work. Lyssiotis is constantly playing with language and meaning through cutting and cropping. His text and photomontage reference Greek myths and narratives. However, like Ritsos, Lyssiotis uses absurd and dreamlike juxtapositions of text and image instead of a straight, linear re-telling of history.

Responding to the world

‘Books teach us about ourselves and the world we live in’ ¹

Lyssiotis’ work endures as it is often made in response to events that have a very real human impact on communities or societies. Many of the themes he explores in his work, whether poetic or political, still resonate today. On a local, national and global level, large populations are experiencing the shortcomings of Capitalism, besides the continued threat of environmental degradation, Climate Change and War.

A Masterthief

This exhibition invites you to journey beside a self described “master thief”² from Cyprus to East Burwood via Europe and the Middle East. Looking at Lyssiotis’ work from across 40 years, we hope to share his experience of how memory shapes our future and how art responds to the world.

^{1 Lyssiotis, P., Oppen, M., Struve. W, The Silent Scream: Political and Social Comment in Books by Artists. Petersham, N.S.W. : Ant Press, 2011, p.11.
2 A phrase Lyssiotis borrowed from Bob Dylan’s Positively 4th Street: “If I was a Masterthief I’d rob them.”}