Miltos Pantelias - Παντελιάς Μίλτος

Miltos Pantelias - Παντελιάς Μίλτος


Born in 1954 in Athens.
He studied engraving and lithography at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (1974-1978) at the workshops of Lagrange and Dayez and then at the Art Plastiques section of Paris VIII University.

He lived in Paris for eleven years (1974-1985) studying painting.

He has presented his artwork in twenty five personal exhibitions and several collective ones, in Greece and abroad.
He has made numerous engravings and lithographies for special numbered editions and poetry collections.

Paper’s fragility and sensibility becomes a predilection place for his drawings with the blooming figures. The oscillation between painting and drawing under sepia undulations and his wanderings between the image and the script spread over his canvases a mist of palimpsest of matter and time, the time of the confused memory.
The fold in palimpsest, the “inhabited” fold defines actually the new domain of his art language.

His artwork is included to many important public and private collections in Greece and abroad.


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Miltos Pantelias 

About me

"...I was 19 years old when I left for Paris. I wanted to study painting. I confess that I was disappointed when I got there and saw supposedly 'promising' young painters throwing paint all over the place. Then one day I passed in front of the door of the Print making Department and smelled all the odours of the engraving kitchen. Engraving needs discipline, knowledge of the various possible techniques, of all the many details. I studied painting by studying engraving. This ricochet makes me think that painting is not just a matter of making a gesture, nor is it a therapy for mentally disturbed individuals. It's the process of creating a world that doesn't exist but which is real for me as well as for others. I have never painted in the open air. I collect the elements that catch my attention through notes and rough sketches, then I reconstruct them in my studio by structuring an ensemble that has nothing to do with the forms I've seen at the beginning of this process. My studio has no natural light. I installed a system of fixed light that allows me to see all the details always under the same light and work in the same unchanging environment whether it's day or night. This helps me to live in a world full of elements I should like to see around. Thanks to these I build a new state of things without metaphysics, without romanticism. They are prominent in my paintings: old maps, manuscripts, seals, old photos... I am always surprised by the details; that's the reason why I look at paintings from very close to. Large works of art are thrilling whether you look at them from a distance or from very close. The peripheral details give value to a work of art."
"...My paintings can easily be misunderstood by people who don't believe that artists create in order to have the possibility to destroy. When I paint, I am under tremendous pressure, ready to annihilate my work. However, I think that such pressure is positive."

New European Artists, An annual of contemporary European artists introduced by prominent art critics, Philip D. Dracodaidis: M.Pantelias vol.1, editions Edward Lucie-Smith, 2000