My personal and artistic path
I am Greek, a native of the island of Chios.
After my secondary studies, I left for London where I attended the Royal Academy. The following year I arrived in Paris and was admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. At the same time, in order to improve my knowledge of drawing I attended several courses in various Parisian academies and took part in the city’s salons. In 1976 an exhibition of my paintings was held at the Galerie Alexander in Paris. Following this exhibition I was entrusted by the Edition de l’Union latine with the illustrations of La Danse macabre, a major work for bibliophiles.
This was the first and only commercial concession I ever accepted.
Since then, I have worked in my studio, free from restraint, keeping out of artistic trends dictated by the industrial and urban aesthetics that prevails at the time.
Rhigas Painter
- Alone against all at a time of widespread derision.
- A spiritualist, non-realistic figurative artist.
- A spiritualist art without religious references.
I devise shapes after several preparatory sketches, steering clear of any pretence of verisimilitude, a field already won over by photography.
- Rigour and freedom.
Rigour in preparatory studies, the figures, the hands, proportions, composition, rhythm etc…
I develop my imagination and visual memory to do my paintings. After a well thought-out layout and composition I paint freely, spontaneously and swiftly bearing in mind the double aspect of each shape : an alternating pattern of cold and warm colours to suggest depth , each element participating in the making of a hierarchically structured composition.
My work then, demands more than a quick, casual glance.