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     The more I look at this Blanc page trying to figure out what to write about me, the more I just want to draw something instead. I always preferred to let my work speak for me and for itself.

Maybe I should just write a common profile, as if someone else wrote it for me or even ask someone to write about me, as I often see on artist’s sites. But this site is my home and I wish to greet you personally as a friend. Let me give this a try.

 

      I was born and raised in the heart of Montreal, a city that I always keep in my heart.

I started drawing and painting from my early years in life. Looking back on my childhood, what I remember most about me, is being very persistent in observing people and being immersed for hours every day in a piece of paper, drawing and painting, translating everything I saw and felt into images, sometimes bringing scenes of another world from within, like pieces of a giant puzzle that is yet to be completed. My career in art was always a given. Come to think of it, painting is my native language.

      I studied art and painting at Concordia university in Montreal, academic drawing and fine arts in Athens. Above schools and universities, to study art is to follow a personal journey constantly observing and drawing, even with the eyes in the absence of paper, constantly studying the great works of those who preceded and constantly being brave in challenging and overcoming fear, for this is the only way to stay determined and maintain dignity.

       I Traveled a lot around the world, studied works of art and cultures. I have had and taken part in exhibitions and art venues, created murals, designed spaces and completed art commissions both in Canada and Europe.

Besides painting, I am a published author and poet. Poetry is always a substantial part of my life.

        I created, owned and managed three art cafes and lounge bars, well-established in the art world, (where artists from every field of the arts gathered) held exhibitions of my work and others’, art shows, theater, book presentations, independent film festivals and promoted artists for over twenty years. I always liked the idea of art being shown in lively places

     From the beginning of my career in art, I was lucky enough to feel always very welcomed and respected in the art community and formed strong friendships with well-established artists and art lovers from all fields of art. It is their respect for me as an artist that always helped me move forward. I am very thankful for that.

As for now, I feel I am still that boy, full of curiosity, wanting to understand and willing to do everything for that. So my studies continue…

         

        I work with oil paints on linen, usually in large sizes. Following my understanding and studies of the old masters’ techniques, I paint -and think- through layering, which is the only way to achieve real depth and a clear sense of space in a painting as well as vibrant colors and maximum durability in time. For the last years, I spend most of my time in my studio, completely devoted to painting and to exploring digital art.

         Art, for me, is a quest for the truth, a quest for beauty. As in any quest, an artist has to be prepared and equipped as much as motivated and inspired.

To be inspired is to remain always curious about life. Every why and how is an inspiration. Every strong feeling is an inspiration. Living as much as possible in the present strengthens that inspiration.

        Skill demands that I remain a student forever. Stop being a student, and I stop being an artist. As Auguste, Rodin wrote in his testament.

       

        "Art is just feeling. However, without the science of volumes, proportions, colors, without skill of the hand, the most lively feeling is paralyzed. What would become of the greatest poet in a foreign country whose language he did not know? "

 

        However, I believe that art is not a competition for an artist to show his skills. Art is not an obsession to invent something new, not even a place to expose and express feelings as a personal therapy. 

         I don’t use art to find courage, because courage will never give me the truth. I use art to find the truth and I find courage.  

          Art is for an artist to communicate and share all that he learned from his journey as a truthful storyteller and contribute as he can to the evolution of human culture by exploring and creating beauty. Art is a language that speaks directly when no other language can. Art describes us as human beings and is our greatest joy and defense.

         Nothing is more capable than art to challenge an established way of thinking, a logic that wants to remain Indisputable for ever. Images translate in a way that our inner self understands without the filter of limited words and symbols, without the filter of a limited logic.

          A painting is a frozen moment in time, the observation of the present and sometimes a prophesy, because it is the present where the past and future meet. And it is the present that can remind us of who we really are. We are a projection of what we want to be that exists between light and dark.