Maria Filopoulou                                       
Tasos Mantzavinos                                  Artist's Biography>>
Kostas Papanikolaou          
Nana Vetta








An excerpt from
"I Paint Fear of the Sea" 2006.
Although I come from an island, I don't feel like an islander. I have a love/fear relationship with the sea. My mother used to say that I was scared of the sea, and that is why I rarely travel by boat. My whole life I've been painting this fear of the sea. [.] In my dreams I picture the sea as Erebus: pitch black, never calm, green/black and threatening. [.]
As a painter, I am interested in tradition, as in Byzantine art, Kontoglou, or Karaghiozis. Only Kontoglou's sea resembles mine. Nothing like Turner's seascapes. I don't like Volonakis, I detest him. I don't like Gericault. I do like Constable. I like Byzantine backgrounds with the sea very much. Now, I tend ever more to this feeling.

Tassos Mantzavinos