A minute with: Chris Akordalitis Painter-artist

Where do you live?
After 13 years living in Germany, me and my partner Joana moved back home during Covid. We live in Paphos, Cyprus in a small village up on the mountains together with our cats, Frida and Pablo.

What did you have for breakfast?
Well today is Sunday and on Sundays we go a little bit extra. I made halloumi cheese with cherry tomatoes and eggs in the pan and garnished it with caper and fresh basil from the garden. And of course coffeeee.

Describe your perfect day
Maybe start the day with a swim at the beach, then home for breakfast and lunch prep. Go to the studio and work until afternoon. Meet with friends or family for coffee or dinner.

Best book ever read?
Tough one. I will say Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (or the modern Prometheus). I remember it staying with me for a long time after reading it. Besides the strong descriptions and storytelling is fascinating how accurate it still is after so many years. A story about acceptance, realisations about human nature and the role of technology – especially today that everything is changing so fast in this direction.

Best childhood memory?
It’s summer. We are all together at my grandparents’ house. The whole family, cousins visiting from abroad etc. There is a bed outside underneath the pomegranate tree. We kids are on the bed and our grandfather peals and cuts for us some peaches from his field. Everyone seems to be happy. I feel safe.

What is always in your fridge?
My cat’s eye drops.

What music are you listening to in the car at the moment?
Usually the radio is on, on a random channel. But if I am driving a long distance, I listen to my favourite Cyprus podcast ‘HistoriCon’. The best company while driving, painting, cooking.

What’s your spirit animal?
I used to believe it was the deer. Magnificent creatures, ruling the forest. Deer symbolise gentleness, independence and creativity. Although water is my element, the forest is where I feel safer and feel that my imagination can run wild. Rivers, the sounds of the trees and the animals. Now, after four years living with cats that has changed! You can learn a lot from them and understand why the Egyptians worshiped them.

What are you most proud of?
That through my decisions and my practice, I am blessed to have beautiful people around me who I can trust and we can bloom together with. It’s the simple things in life.

What movie scene has really stayed with you?
Once Upon a Time in America. The scene when a gangster shoots and kills a young boy who dies in the arms of his friend Noodles (…)

If you could pick anyone at all (alive or dead) to go out for the evening with, who would it be?
Hmmm….

If you could time travel when/where would you go?
Medieval Europe just to visit an alchemist studio. Imagine the beautiful chaos (and the smell)!
What is your greatest fear?
To look back one day and realise that I didn’t do enough of what I am passionate about and for the people that I love. That’s why I am trying to give my all to everything that I am burning for.

What would you say to your 18-year-old self?
Trust the process!

Name the one thing that would stop you dating someone
As one good friend says: Don’t talk to me if you are a racist or a homophobic

If the world is ending in 24 hours, what would you do?
I will go and sit at my favourite place in this world, the Sea Caves in Peyia, and wait till the sunset with whomever wants to spend their last 24 hours with me.