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I have
had many births.
I was born as a physical being in Montreal on October 20, 1967. That city and
that day are the two most prominent constants in my life and have continued
to define me as an artist. I was named after my paternal grandfather, George
and my uncle, Anastasios, both of whom were killed right in front of the eyes
of my grandmother and my father (when he was eleven years old), during the
Greek civil war in 1948. I have had the privilege of having a mother, Virginia,
who is a natural born artist, and a father, Elias, who is a natural born philosopher.I
am a whole who is half his father and half his mother.
Being from Montreal and being a Greek means that I hover amidst a variety of
borders: between the European and the Canadian ways of life, between the French,
English, and Greek languages, between the American and Canadian relationships
to political landscapes, between thinking analytically, critically, and creatively
and making, doing, and creating; between rational thought and passionate instinct,
between running and dancing, and so forth.
My formal educations reflect this nomadic and multifarious
identity. I was born as a thinker when I first read
Nietzsche and earned my B.A. in political theory
from Montreal’s Concordia University.
I furthered my academic studies at San Francisco
State University where
I earned my Master of Arts degree in interdisciplinary humanities. This degree
came as a result of my research on the relationship between techne and poiesis in
the work of Martin Heidegger, and Joseph Beuys’s expanded concept of
art. My education was furthered at Carnegie Mellon, where
I formalized my work as a painter and multi-disciplinary artist. As a thinker,
Martin Heidegger and the painters of Lascaux fathered
me into the world of painting the ground. This birth
resulted in a prolonged pregnancy of studies of a particular
palette of warm
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autumnal
colors and led to my articulation of what I call
the "ground palette". The
resultant labor is, in a way, still taking place. It
has thus far resulted in my discovery of the relationship
between the turning of the leaves. Indeed, no
matter how much I try, I can never escape my origins
in Montreal. Since then I have exhibited locally, nationally,
internationally, and always with the attempt to dialogue
with the vernacular customs, traditions, and aesthetics
of my host cities. I have continued my writings, readings,
paintings, performances and other forms of research
on artists, phenomena, and thinkers as varied as Led
Zeppelin, Terrence Malick, Bossa Nova music, Henri
Matisse, Rembrandt, Henry Aaron, Yoko Ono, and any
other figure who prioritizes affirmation over decadence.I
have traveled to and lived in such places as Karditsa
(Greece), Athens, Tangiers, Barcelona, Venice, Granada,
Paris, San Francisco, New York, West Palm Beach, and
Pittsburgh. I continue to cultivate relationships in
these cities despite the temporality of my presence.
My home is not a geographic place but rather an emotional and psychic one.
I return to it in all my travels and all my incarnations. I believe that
the greatest challenge for artists today is the embrace of warmth, free thinking,
and an affirming spirit.
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