James Michalopoulos

While other artists may shock you with the face value of their subject, James Michalopoulos moves you with something deeper: spirit - the intangible, luminescent spirit that shines out from every subject he paints. Not content to simply create objects on canvas, Michalopoulos creates objects which "illuminate life". It is this life-giving energy pulsating beneath the outward manifestation of his subject that defines Michalopoulos's art - and accounts for its power.

Michalopoulos's paintings alternate between cityscape, landscape, and figuration, from abstract to realistic. He refers to his process as an "incessant revealing" - a revealing of life's quiet majesty, that which "shines outward from the humble and exalted alike."

"I wish through my work to express the wealth and possibility of life," says Michalopoulos. For him that means taking chances in self-expression and going below the surface to reveal such intangibles as hope and positive energy.

Michalopoulos's social consciousness led him to a degree in Government and Legal Studies from Bowdon College in Maine. He also studied Law and Economics at Boston University. The result of these "outside" pursuits was to give him insight into man's more complex motivations - an awareness that would surface later in the subtle richness of his work.

Michalopoulos received his fine arts training in the South, at both the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts and the University of New Orleans. In 1978, he began drawing street scenes and architectural renderings in Washington, D.C., then spent time in Key West, Florida to concentrate on land and seascapes. He moved to New Orleans in 1980 to pursue a full-time art career. Since then, Michalopoulos has exhibited extensively in the states, as well as Europe.