ITHACA REGAINED

GREEK ARTISTS IN NEW YORK

Stephen Antonakos

Untitled, 2006
Colored pencil on Vellum, 23 x 16 inches

Stephen Antonakos was born November 1, 1926, in Agios Nikolaos (Saint Nicholas), a mountain village in Laconia, Greece. The family moved to New York in 1930, finally settling in Brooklyn where a high school teacher was the first to recognize and encourage Stephen’s artistic ability. In 1945 he was drafted into the army. On his return he enrolled in the art department at Brooklyn Community College and received his certificate two years later.

“Antonakos has the distinct ability to use light as both line and form,” says Jim Toia, director of the Grossman Gallery and former assistant to the artist. “The color itself takes on physical presence, both by determining space and negating it at times. That phenomenon allows him to occupy a very unique place in the world of contemporary art. His approach spans numerous decades and movements of art of the second half of the 20th century, addressing issues of minimalism, pop art, and the spiritual in art.” Along with his painted or gold-leaf neon panels with colored neon light and his works on paper and Vellum, he has become known for his Walls, Meditation Rooms, Chapels, and Artist’s Books.

For more than four decades, he has exhibited extensively in New York and throughout the United States, in Greece and throughout Europe. Since the late1970s more than 45 large-scale permanent public works have been installed in the United States, Europe, and Japan.