A minute with: Costas Panayi, artist

Where do you live?
I live alone in Mitsero, a village 25km from Nicosia.

What did you have for breakfast?
I don’t usually have breakfast, just a cup of coffee.

Describe your perfect day.
The perfect day would be the… next, if there is one. I will paint, if I am inspired, listening to music almost all day long. If not, then I will ride my bike, which is my great love along with painting, and see where the road takes me and I hope it is a long trip!

Best book ever read?
I have more than one favourite book. One of them is Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. I read it when I was 14 but only scraped the surface. When I read it again after many years, I grasped the deeper meaning and his philosophical stance on life. At times I read it again because it inspires me and keeps me young and alive.

Best childhood memory?
When I was in the first class of primary school, a beloved teacher told my father when he saw him at the coffeeshop that “your son, Mr Charalambos, will become a great artist one day”. My father related this to me in the evening and asked me if this was good or bad!

What is always in your fridge?
Milk for nutrition and zivania for recreation!

What music are you listening to in the car at the moment?
I listen to all kinds of music, usually Greek and foreign rock, and Greek quality music, such as Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis.

What’s your spirit animal?
I will identify not with an animal but with a tiny little bird – the sparrow – because for me he is the ‘tramp’ that you can meet across the length and breadth of the planet and manages to survive in all weather conditions.

What are you most proud of?
That I have so far managed not to ‘kill’ my inner child.

What movie scene has really stayed with you?
It is a scene from Adolescence on Netflix. It was about modern time bullying by today’s teenagers, where parents can’t be of help due to technology illiteracy. They go down dark paths, such as the crime committed in this limited series. The scene that stayed with me is when the youth, who was confined at an institution after committing a murder, reacted violently towards the psychologist who was helping him.

If you could pick anyone at all (alive or dead) to go out for the evening with, who would it be?
The painter Vincent Van Gogh, to meet his genius madness.

If you could time travel when/where would you go?
I would like to visit the ancient ‘agora’ of Athens to hear Plato and Socrates discuss philosophy.

What is your greatest fear?
My greatest fear is to not die standing.

What would you say to your 18-year-old self?
Sleep peacefully, almost all your dreams have come true!

Name the one thing that would stop you dating someone.
If they were shallow.

If the world is ending in 24 hours, what would you do?
‘I fear nothing. I am free.’ I borrow this from the great Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis.