Into the Green IV Painting

After my permanent relocation from Athens, Greece, to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, I successfully completed my studies at the Dutch Art Academy, in 1994. Two years later, I was awarded a stipend by the Mondriaan Fund, formerly known as the Fund for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (BKVB). Since then, I live and work in Amsterdam and exhibit regularly; ‘samples’ of my artistic production can be found in domestic and foreign private collections, but also, in cultural institutions, in the Netherlands and abroad. In my paintings, color, bright light and nature have always been my main sources of inspiration; landscapes, organic forms and their evolution, abstract compositions with the floral or geometric element. Important aspect of my work remains the balance between color and light. This is the element that dictates how the shape will gradually develop. While certain color blends, combined with a given shape, potentially intensify subtle erotic qualities, other elements form aesthetic landscape(s) and organic matter. In my earlier work, however, I chose to place large volumes in landscape compositions. The last few years, I have been working on a series of paintings based on the theme Nature. In these creations, I increasingly zoom in on landscape fragments and organic shapes…a pure quest for new images. It is fair to admit that I put my heart and soul into my paintings and I keep looking for solutions while painting. The ‘route’ from white canvas to the end result is, every time, a fascinating, poetic journey in color, light and sensation. As I paint, I like to be guided by the image itself and I let the end result surprise me (each painting comprises a separate research through numerous options). The selection of paintings I present here are oil paintings with multiple color layers; colors are very important, beautiful, especially when there is a structure but also transparency in them.