"In searching for perfection and beauty nothing fascinates me more than colour in enamel".

 

When I was first involved in art, more than forty years ago, I was a general surgeon. Considering the load of work in a London hospital at the time, it was quite natural to look for a passage that would lead to some relief from the daily strain and an escape from patients' problems. In selecting the long avenue of art I was aware of the teachings of Hippocrates that  «O vios vrahis i de techni macra» [Life is short but art is long lasting],  and did not feel that I was trespassing on foreign ground.

 

At an early stage I realized that anatomy and many surgical tools are common both to medicine and metalcraft, after all surgery itself is also an art. In the evolution of my "career" in art I spent a decade in painting, sculpture, woodcarving and batik. Every minute was well consumed. However, following my apprenticeship in coppercraft, gold and silversmithing I was becoming uneasy, dissatisfied and restless until the charm of enamel colour came to my rescue.

 

From the very beginning my love for this medium of fine art was accompanied by zeal, enthusiasm and an almost religious devotion that resulted in an astonishing and sustained burst of creative invention. In searching for colour in a dark epoch of enamel history I suddenly realized that, although the technique of enameling may have been invented independently in widely separated regions the history of the earliest cloisonné enamels starts in Cyprus. Indeed how proud Cypriots must be of their cultural heritage, having the oldest enamels that exist to-day in the whole world! They are six gold rings with cloisonné enamel, discovered in a Mycenaean tomb at Kouklia, Cyprus, and dated the 13th century B.C.

 

My work in enameling is an endeavour to bring about a revival of an ancient Cyprus craft, at its own birthplace, and a reminder that an elegant enamel work is a piece of art, beautiful, fascinating and representing what is best in value and skilled craftsmanship.

 

Panicos Michaelides January 2003