Welcome to the web site of Fanitsa Petrou.
Fanitsa Petrou is a painter, illustrator, calligrapher and writer. She has also worked as a graphic designer, copyist, fashion designer, fashion illustrator, photographer. She was born in Cyprus, where she lives and works from.
Her work as a painter / illustrator, incorporates all sorts of iconic imagery: figurative / traditional art, but also surrealism, Fantasy Art, the sci-fi and New Age genres, etc. Angels are a very big part of her work (and her spiritual life), but also all things symbolic and mysterious: fairies, Nature Spirits, mythological beings, creatures inhabiting imaginary lands or simply human beings, tormented, beautiful, and fount at a point of escape, where they seem to reach out, searching for the clues that can unlock the mysteries of our existence. With spiritual, and at times metaphysical undertones, her art attempts to capture the human form and condition, but also the unformed, yet palpably felt, inner realities.
A new feauture of her art - and this site - is the creation of portraits.
As a writer, she has written (and illustrated) the book “ANGELS - A Tribute to Angels / Angelic invocations” (which you can find under the Angel Books Category). She has also been a contributing writer for magazines and newspapers, writing in English and Greek, about a wide range of topics (politics, cinema reviews, fashion articles, a weekly humor column, essays on the subject of the world religions and metaphysics, etc)
She has also painted the seven (eight!) archangels and two books (one in English, one in Greek) that are dedicated to them. These come in the form of Calendars (2007), offering a lot of information about angels, archangels and winged beings in all traditions: “The Seven Archangels - 2007 Calendar” (English & Greek version)
She is working on a longer version of this work in the form of a book, titled "The Seven Archangels & The Seven Chakras -An illustrated guide into the world of Angels". It is a guide into Angelic lore and the Art of Meditation, offering also a look at the connection between the Seven Archangels and the Seven Chakras, the Heavenly realms and the world of crystals, etc.
Her latest work is 6 new, different desk and wall Calendars with Angels and Fairies. (click here to view: "A Fairies' Calendar - A Celebration of the Goddess" & Angels Calendar for 2010 with many illustrations of Angels, Archangels, Fairies, mermaids, mythic beings and goddesses. She also has created 3 NEW wall as well as 3 new magnet calendars for the year 2010.
She has also been working (for the last 11 years) on a Tarot project: she is illustrating and writing a Tarot book & deck, titled "Tarot, the Journey into the Self". A work that takes into account the Imagery and symbolism of the traditional Tarot, but also many other esoteric traditions such as Alchemy, Cabbalism, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, the Goddess tradition, ancient mystery cults, world mythology, astrology, numerology, Jungian symbolism. (View some samples of this work, here) She has also written and illustrated, three children books, which she hopes to publish soon.
She has also created another illustrated book, titled “A Metaphysical Journey into the Future”. A work that combines the sci-fi genre with New Age concepts, eschatological theories with metaphysics, and Fantasy Art / Surrealism with the poetry of supreme poets, such as Rilke, Rumi, Tagore, Dylan Thomas, Neruda, to name but a few.
Her future plans include painting the feminine archetypes as they appear in world mythology (a goddess tradition kit); illustrating Rumi’s esoteric poetry and maybe some day, translating it into Greek; creating an Angel / Self Awareness / set of cards; illustrating and creating a book on the 12 Zodiac signs; creating a book about the five major religions and humanity's search for Truth (take a preview at the link "World Religions"). She also hopes (like the other half of the Earth’s population) that she will one day, write the novel(s) that haunts her mind... Though Time being what it is, (so fluid and fleeting and all that), she is willing to compromise with a graphic novel. A short one...
In the meantime, she is paying the bills by creating Commercial Art, (conceptual illustration, fashion illustration, product illustration, wine labels, logos and graphics, cartoons copy writing) for the purposes of the advertising, fashion, publishing industries, fighting on a daily basis against geography, trying to repay this karmic mountain of a debt, that has obviously been the reason why she was sent to be born in this artistic exile of an island, that apparently nobody has heard of. Though on the other hand, who can argue with the-great-weather-by-the-sea angle?!! Which is to say, you can’t have it all. (God forbid!)
She invites you in her "studio", eager to show her work to you, (you virtual stranger you), and if she has to be honest, basically hopes that you will buy lots of it - or at least have the decency of recommending it to someone who might :-)
(Now you can purchase stuff using Paypal. For more info, please send an email to: info@fanitsa-petrou.com
This ever expanding site, (make sure to click on the "Refresh" or "Reload" button of your browser regularly, to view all new additions), hosts more than 600 original art items, created by Fanitsa Petrou, including many of her paintings and illustrations, the originals of which are offered for sale. It also offers for sale, more than 200 prints of her work, in the form of Greeting cards, bookmarks or posters. Her Fairies, Angel / Archangel books / Calendars are also available here, as well as many objects d'art, stones or pieces of furniture and windows, which she decorates in a number of ways. A part of this site is also dedicated to her work as a commercial illustrator / graphic designer / copy writer.
She thanks you for taking the time!
Web site design /concept & copy writing by Fanitsa Petrou
web master: charis lappas. email: charis@lappas.info
Copyright © 2006 Fanitsa Petrou. All Rights Reserved