Me as an artist

I live and work in Thessaloniki, Greece as a visual artist. At the same time, I teach various painting courses at my beloved art workshop, Karlas Art World.

In recent years, I have settled in a studio in bohemian Chinari, a picturesque and quiet corner of Ano Poli with a spectacular view. In this small nest, I gaze at my much-cherished Mount Olympus and create with my cat-roommate as my companion.

I am a graduate of the School of Visual and Applied Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where I studied at the workshop of the exceptional Kyriakos Mortarakos. The six years there were transformative for me as I entered an intensive process of study, artistic creation and exposure to all kinds of visual stimuli. I was in love with my art and insatiable as far as exploring and practicing extensively goes. I still am.

I made the decision to leave everything behind and devote myself to my art at the age of 28, while on holiday in the forest of Samothrace. I spent there ten days, painting with a box of watercolors on wood, rocks, pine cones and all kinds of canvases the forest had to offer. And it was the first time in my life that I experienced a kind of transcendence through time. These ten days felt like ten hours…it was the calling.

I have been painting ever since I was a child. I had even attended drawing lessons, it was my second nature to have paper and pencil or pen and fill every white surface with drawings, even the margins of my schoolbook pages, but I had never thought of myself as an artist. I thought it was just something I do… Not even after I discovered graffiti in high school and filled walls in a need to expand to a larger surface did I imagine it. I grasped that in the forest when I realized that painting is not just something I do, but something I do because I need to do it. When I create, I have the feeling that I am communing with an intelligent and perpetual form of energy and I feel sanctified, entering another state where time and space are more alive. I feel like I’m on fire. I feel like this is where I belong… That is why I do it.

As an artist I am always in a state of inexhaustible curiosity, and this attitude enables me to experience bliss at every step of the process as I experience a love affair with what I touch, what I see, what is born right before my eyes.

I create experientially; that is, the beginning of a concept comes from an experience of mine, this can be a look, a person, a body, an idea, a feeling, a particular space or material, a tool, a situation that I am going through and want to approach more deeply. Inspiration is everything that will have the power to become an obsession for me because of the attraction it makes me feel. This obsession will lead me to my studio. From then on, the most important part begins, the creative process, because then the obsession is transformed into a relationship. Every piece is a challenge to me, a journey, an experiment, and a form of intercourse. There are moments when I stand in the center of the studio and lost in my senses I act completely intuitively, there are moments when I fight, there are moments I dance, moments I risk and come what may, moments I sit opposite my art looking at it asking, what are you? What do you want? Why don’t you talk to me? It is a relationship and includes all its elements. I don’t want to control it; I want to let it evolve organically and with it, I progress too. I am afraid that one day I might reach a deadlock and begin to produce mannerisms. Therefore, I very consciously try to safeguard my work from routine, for it is my liberator, and I could not bear to do that…

I produce drawings, many times with text, paintings both figurative and abstract or mixed as well as mixed media constructions and visual installations. Most of my pieces are done with mixed materials. Everything that exists in my environment can act as art material and a tool. I am excited by the dialogue of many different materials and textures and the balance, or not, of what may arise. But it all starts with a plan, then I decide if and what may also happen and why…

In the portfolio you can see photographs of my current work. Also, on the blog you can read the accompanying texts written during the creation of each piece with which I convey a part of experiencing the process. That for me is equally important with the result and photography cannot always convey it, as the only way to really experience a painting is to come into live contact with it and let it unravel the energy with which it has been impregnated. It’s a relationship… and it takes time and close contact …😊