ARTISTElias Papanikolaou
His works can be found in museums, private and corporate collections
Art in my mind is a way of searching the truth. I’m interested in the content of the artwork and the directness of emotion and thought that the artwork itself causes. I started my career in 1996. In the beginning my artworks were inventive. Later they became more sensational. This time a new search path that has opened, is in progress.
Using varied patterns and motifs, solid colours and the occasional brush stroke that reminds one of printmaking, Elias Papanikolaou moulds his shapes almost like ideograms, erecting bridges between the outdoor and the interiors of the houses in some coastal towns of his own making.
In summer or at dusk, their clearings spawn tree trunks with an inbuilt contrast to the arbitrary life that exists in their roots. The branches among the foliage turn into the leaders of a sudden bolt of lightning, while the journeys of clouds in the sky seem to be the rhythmic retorts to the motion of waves in the sea, where a distant ship turns into an island and a boat becomes a kite or a forgotten sandal on the beach.
In addition to the visual discourse he develops with the various kinds of perspective, to the suggestive ellipsis of his drawing and to his special treatment of colours, Elias Papanikolaou combines and remodels elements from ancient painting (on lekythoi, but also on Pompeii murals), from the layered Byzantine icons, from the shadow-theatre, from the art of Matisse, Cezanne, Dufy and Chagall and also from the Japanese estampes, revealing his own «City of Dreams.»
With the delicacy of the ‘substance’ of things and through the gusts of a light wind or some Mediterranean breeze, the painter’s landscapes depict notions and acts, actions and situations in a scene made up of moments of life.
Art in my mind is a way of searching the truth. I’m interested in the content of the artwork and the directness of emotion and thought that the artwork itself causes. I started my career in 1996. In the beginning my artworks were inventive. Later they became more sensational. This time a new search path that has opened, is in progress.
Using varied patterns and motifs, solid colours and the occasional brush stroke that reminds one of printmaking, Elias Papanikolaou moulds his shapes almost like ideograms, erecting bridges between the outdoor and the interiors of the houses in some coastal towns of his own making.
In summer or at dusk, their clearings spawn tree trunks with an inbuilt contrast to the arbitrary life that exists in their roots. The branches among the foliage turn into the leaders of a sudden bolt of lightning, while the journeys of clouds in the sky seem to be the rhythmic retorts to the motion of waves in the sea, where a distant ship turns into an island and a boat becomes a kite or a forgotten sandal on the beach.
In addition to the visual discourse he develops with the various kinds of perspective, to the suggestive ellipsis of his drawing and to his special treatment of colours, Elias Papanikolaou combines and remodels elements from ancient painting (on lekythoi, but also on Pompeii murals), from the layered Byzantine icons, from the shadow-theatre, from the art of Matisse, Cezanne, Dufy and Chagall and also from the Japanese estampes, revealing his own «City of Dreams.»
With the delicacy of the ‘substance’ of things and through the gusts of a light wind or some Mediterranean breeze, the painter’s landscapes depict notions and acts, actions and situations in a scene made up of moments of life.
His works can be found in museums, private and corporate collections
Biography
Born in Athens in 1974. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts under Nikos Kessanlis.
In his first solo exhibition in 1996 in Artio Gallery his installation of numerous match boxes was of constructivist nature with arte povera elements. In the two solo exhibitions that followed (in Zoumboulakis Galleries, 2000 and Titanium Gallery, 2006) Papanikolaou enriched and extended his problematic- conceptually and semantically- in artworks-constructions using cigarettes, and in colourful collages and objects.
In 2006 makes a shift and goes to painting without missing on minimalist touch in his compositions. Varied figures and motives, spot colours and etching-like brushstrokes, Papanikolaou combines and transforms elements from ancient painting (lekythoi, Pompeian wall paintings), the byzantine icon stratigraphy, the Shadow Theatre, painting by Matisse, Cezanne, Dufy, Chagall and the japanese estampes, Papanikolaou unravels a new, personal “Dream City”.
His works can be found in private collections, museums and corporate collections, such as Municipal Gallery of Patras, Municipal Gallery of Kalamata, Athens School of Fine Arts, the American College in Greece, Heineken Company, Kapelouzos Museum, Vorres Museum, Sotiris Felios Collection, Oliver Stone Collection, Logothetis Collection, Drakos Collection, Karelias Collection and others.
Elias Papanikolaou lives and works in Athens.
Solo Exhibitions
-2016 Eutopia of Elias Papanikolaou “Eutopia” elite shop, Athens
-2015 On the journey of the line Ikastikos kiklos gallery, Athens
-2015 Poetic Wall Metamorfosis gallery, Thessaloniki
-2013 Poetic routes Syntagma Metro Station, Athens
-2013 On the terrace of childhood Metamorfosis gallery, Thessaloniki
-2013 In the dance of painting touch Cube gallery, Patras
-2013 The pose of pine needle Kaplanon5 gallery, Athens
-2011 On the breeze Cube gallery, Patras
-2011 Painterly sonnets Melanythros art gallery, Athens
-2009 Contemplation Astrolavos gallery, Athens
-2006 Globalization Titanium gallery, Athens
-2000 Do you smoke? Zoumboulaki gallery, Athens
-1996 Take a matchbox of memory ARTIO gallery, Athens
He has also participated in numerous important group exhibitions, auctions and art actions.