"The President Of Cyprus - Nikos Anastasiades: The Lone Rider", by Harris (2002)

It's hard to miss the stories on Cyprus and its unfortunate, troubled banks all over the media these days. As a Cypriot living in the UK, hearing the occasional story from home featured in the main BBC news is normally a pleasant experience ; I never thought I'd ever see such a huge volume of headline stories unfolding daily from our tiny country - with potentially catastrophic effects on millions of people through out Europe! Surely, whatever the deal between the Cypriot government and its "partners", trust in the banks of any European country (not to mention the European Union itself!) will be gone forever. And the banking system, surely, cannot function without trust. After six years of Bank scandals around the world why should any one leave their money in their hands or invest in them in any way?

This is a portrait I did of Mr Anastasiades (the hapless cypriot president) back in 2002 for MAN magazine in Cyprus. I had the idea then to present him as "The lone rider" (inspired of course by Lucky Luke!) as he was having difficulties forming coalition with other parties at the time. How prophetic this image turned out to be eleven years later as he was returning to Cyprus from Brussels today alone, penniless, and with no partner standing by him...