Antonios (Panagopoulos) (1957)

Born in Athens in 1957, he studied music, mechanical engineering, decoration and construction applications, and later attended the painting workshop of G. Voyatzis. In 1981 he secured a scholarship for the educational programme "The 4 colours of Antiquity" by Yannis Tsarouchis at the Ionic Centre of Studies on Chios. In 1981 and 1984 he attended as an external participant the sculpture classes of Theodoros at the School of Architecture in Athens, and in 1982-1983 he took part in the pre-conference and the Conference of Art Education of the Art Chamber of Greece with an exhibition and a proposal for an Adults' Educational Exhibition. In 1998 he won the 2nd Award of the City of Athens for Building Painting.
His early works of the 1980s already demonstrate the philosophical background to his thought as he explores various methods for depicting the mental perception of space; his austere geometric compositions with their limited palette of black and white attempt to convey the various transmutations of the straight line in relation to the mathematical calculations of space-time. His philosophical quests lead to the creation of Espacede Mémoire, a milestone in his artistic course. In 1990 he adds the element of language, establishing a dialectic between metaphysics and speech. Since then, language has become a dominant element in his art, while at the same time he has extended his quests on a multicultural level.
He has presented his work in over ten solo exhibitions in Greece and has participated in dozens of group shows in Greece and abroad, including: 150 Young Painters of the Community (Athens Conservatoire, 1982); Rhodes—Art Space (Rhodes, 1993); Contemporary Greek Artists: Mythologies of the Books/Zeitgenossische Griechische Kunstler: Mythologien des Buches (Frankfurt, 2001); Athens by Art (Athens 2004), MMM Art: Medana Art Project (Slovenia, 2011); Art Archives (Kresow Museum, Poland 2015); Course of Ottoman Language & Paleography (National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2016); etc.