. What did you want to become when you were a little boy? What was your favorite game?

Actually, I have never desired to be something. I had always the certainty that I was something. Subconsciously, and later consciously, I just fought to find ways to give a serving form to that "something" which I always knew that I was. I still fight!

My first favorite game was to pretend that I could read, write, play the piano, and dominate the Elements of Nature. Extremely alert and concentrated looking at the sky, seeking a heavy cloud, feeling the first raindrop I was predicting loudly "I wish Rain!"…And it was raining.
The children of the neighborhood were astonished.

When I grew a bit older, every Saturday morning my parents gave me money - one drachma - to spend in the small candy shop at the corner across the street.
There, in between the unforgettable mixture of scents of Pink Bubblegum, Turkish delight and Tobacco I was magnetized by all kinds of image games.
No candy for me - to my sorrow - I preferred to buy a big plate of hard paper with all kinds of figures printed on it. I could cut them and glue them on the blue print and there was the image of a story. Another story every Saturday!

Later I discovered the illustrated editions of the Classic Literature. Classic Comic Books!

I was pretending reading them to others by telling my own interpretation of every image. Then I discovered the printed figurines. Colorful paper characters for home made Shadow Theatre play. [ KARAGOZ, the Folklore silhouette theatre form born in Egypt, adopted by the Turks, became very popular entertainment to the Pre-Television Greeks]. Cutting them, then coloring them and there I was: At the end of a warm afternoon, in our garden, I was giving performances for other children of the neighborhood and proud family members.
I was playing for them, improvising melodies and dialogs, stories that I pretended to have read into these classic comic books from the small candy shop.

. How did you start being involved with art, did you look for it or was it art to find you actually?

Before going to bed, I was permitted to listen to the Radio. Every evening, actors were reading a chapter of a book.
Every Saturday evening they even broadcasted a full theatre play.
Jules Verne, Sheherazad 's stories, Dickens, Swift. Fascinating stories together with music became reality. By listening I could "see" all the action. Like a movie in my head!
Once they were reciting a book called "Sinhoue, The Egyptian", a novel written by the Finnish writer M.Valtary. Then, Egypt became my world. As soon I was able to I knew everything about Egypt and the Pharaohs. Most of all I was fascinated by the Hieroglyphs and murals of the Tombs. Obsessed, I started to pretend that I could write in the ancient Egyptian manner. My family proudly dreamed me as a future Egyptologist. But I was just busy writing stories with images improvising "Egyptian" melodies, like soundtracks in my head.

Much later, when I became acquainted with the Attic and Appulian Amphorae and the prehistoric murals in the caves of Lascau and Altamira I could understand my early urge; telling stories with images. I have done this till today.

I am sure that the people who made the murals in Egypt, Crete, Lascau and Altamira or the decorations of the Amphorae didn't know anything about Art definitions and styles. They learned the skill to be able to note something in a magical way and make events of their life immortal. Till today, I haven't the faintest idea of what Art is.

. What is your cultural and personal background? How did it influence your career as an artist?

During the early school years, I was getting a mosaic of information, which fascinated but confused me greatly as well. One teacher taught me that God is The One and The Only and he created our world in seven days and us looking like him etc. An hour later, they were teaching me that once were living on Olympus Twelve Gods with the whole Pantheon of wonderful divine entities around them.
Later, during geography lesson, I learned about continents and people of different race and color.

Soon I began to ask what color was the skin of Adam and Eve and Jesus.
Where and on which continent was The Paradise. What happened to the other gods?
Why is the Holy Trinity: Father-Son-Holy Spirit, while at home it was Father-Mother-Son. And so on.
I never got solid answer.

Then, instinctively and stubbornly, I decided to find out all by myself. I became a kind of obsessed explorer. I learned to accept and compare by feeling and understanding.
The theatrical rituals of the Orthodox Church, the costumes, the Byzantine melodies of the Psalms, under the sad severe faces of Angels and Saints of the icons mesmerized me.
Theatre performances of ancient Greek tragedies and comedies and the two-dimensional Hollywood heroes and all the wonderful printed stories about our Past and our ability to use fantasy became the sources of perpetual answers to my questions.

Slowly but steadily I was discovering that there is a kind of intriguing beauty everywhere even in the smallest and the worst things and events.
That the more are the answers the more the questions will follow.
Religion, mythology, history, music, literature, and theatre were a fascinating erotic symbiosis of cruelty and tenderness, of life and death.
They were just different rich languages telling me my own story: who I am, where I come from and where I am going.
The urge to tell this story to others became very strong.
Then, I decided to learn skills to do it as effective possible. Somehow, same way as it was told to me.

. What was your training process, did you attend art schools and did you have teachers whom you consider your mentors?

In Art Academy, I was taught about techniques and materials. In Theater school, my focus shifted in Dramaturgy, Stage and Costume design.
Then, it became very important to me to study History of Art. During this study period,
I realized that all that I was learning were nothing more than tools, instruments, helping me understand and give a form to my emotions and experiences.
Giorgio Vasari convinced and inspired me to learn by understanding and carefully analyzing the masterpieces of others. To begin with the artworks that moved me the most. So not persons but their creations became my teachers and mentors.
For instance:
Suddenly, within two unforgettable evenings, I saw in a small art movie theater a film retrospective: "Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo", "Medea", and "Teorema" by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It was a revelation for me!
A week later I saw a theater performance of "Eurydice" by Jean Anouilh.
In this play Eurydice is a young actress and Orpheus a street musician . They meet each
other in a railway station, somewhere, in the middle of a world ruined by the WWII.
Our [to be] world. A place where unconditional love cannot survive.
I visualized immediately this unforgettable experience wanting to share the emotion.
I promised to myself to make once my own versions. And I did so.
The latest of them is the omnimedial work "Orpheus Descended"!

Years later, during my theater career, I became acquainted with the great literature of the Belgian writer Marguerite Yourcenar. I directed and designed her play "The Mystery of Alceste". After the first performance she embraced me and said - "We are nothing more than a lens which is destined to transmit our Past into the Future".
I repeat that to myself almost daily; solving the smothering conflict between Dionysus and Apollo [ I mean the Instinct and the Rationality] inside me….. for the day.

. You moved to the Netherlands where you live and work at present. What did you especially take from Greece to keep it in your art expressivity?

I left the country named by geographers "Greece", but I took with me:
the Gods,
the Nymphs,
the Fauns,
the Sun, The Sea, the Song…
O.K… Me!

. Some say mastering drawing is the most important part of the painting technique. What is your opinion about?

Mastering drawing is one of the most important skills. It's a necessity. Mastering all traditional techniques is an absolute necessity.
Otherwise, inspiration and talent are forced to hide behind the alibi of mystifying abstractions or other eclecticisms.
Something has to Be, before it can be Abstracted or Cube-sided.
The sublime power of the unfinished statues of Michelangelo, the progression of the tree of Mondrian and the miraculous world of Giacometti can teach us all these.

. When was the first time you were really satisfied with the result of your work? I mean, is there any of your paintings you consider the best you ever made?

I am always feeling extremely satisfied with the newest - the latest - visualization of my imagination.
But this euphoric feeling does not last long!
Soon, very soon, I get the horrible feeling that something is missing.
That it is the moment to begin to visualize the next "chapter". I cannot see a piece of mine as an autonomous work with its own beginning and end. It is for me a detail of a Totality, which - for a great percentage - remains hidden waiting to be uncovered.

. Please introduce us to your Omnimedial Images. How do you realize them?

My mind is and has always have been a perpetual source of visions, which I cannot control. It has all the characteristics of a Fractal Generator.
It looks like a never-ending City where I am walking in the streets endlessly, holding my drawing book, my camera, my pencils and singing forgotten songs.
Its name is The Dead City. Inspired by the title of my beloved tragedy of Gabriele D' Annunzio. "La Città Morta".

This City is very much alive. You see, I believe that Death is, like Birth, a new start point. Another door which leads us to a phase, which we are unable to imagine.
I see all kind of happenings. Some impressions are so strong and fascinating that I have to share them with others. It is the traveler's urge of sending a postcard home.
First, I make lots of designs on paper. Something like a storyboard. Then I try to find the right color and light. I do this mostly with egg tempera, sometimes with oils - of whom I love the smell! I glue on pieces of photos and newspaper. If necessary, I go around in Amsterdam with my camera and I make videos.
When I feel that the atmosphere of this concept design corresponds with the view of my Dead City I need to perfection it. Seldom I do it with oils and tempera on prepared wooden panel. Chiaro-scuro, Sfumato. The Works!

But this procedure takes such a long time! And in my mind I meet all kinds of new events in my City, which I am longing to make visible to others.
So to solve the torture of my impatience, I purchased a complete advanced Digital studio, and I studied several image and video processing software.
I scan my concept designs into Emmanuel [my Pentium 4 Computer]. I work further with Photoshop CS, Painter 9, and Premiere Pro 1.5.
Often I print a result and paint on it. Then I scan it again and so on.
Soon is the impression out of my secret City ready. Then I transfer it into Hermes [my Internet computer]. Using the software Dreamweaver [what an appropriate name!] I place the Image into my Site. Then I send it around the world.
While I am thirsty awaiting for the expected reactions, I rush to visualize the next "view" of the city in my mind. The next Omnimedial Image.

. You always mix up past and present elements in your omnimedial images, why?

I see and feel the Past everywhere around me and inside me.
Each one of us, whatever we do or experience - during every fraction of a second –is another end point of a Past and at the same time another start point of a Future.
The same thing happens with everything around us.

. What is the importance of symbolism in your work?

A Symbol is something visible which by association represents something invisible.
It is the sign of a meaning, which is liberated from linguistic or other selective barriers. Symbols enable me to convey the density of an Image, which is a visualization of invisible complexity such as a Myth, a Dream or a Desire.

. Do you look for a certain effect and atmosphere or may they just be the result of a casual process?

When we speak, each word is the end point of an emotional and rational process.
A stimulus awakens an emotion inside us. The emotion becomes concrete first as a thought then as a meaning. Driven by the urge to communicate we give it a recognizable form. We say the Word.
This is my way of doing what I do.
You see if we just don't really know what we say or paint, all relations, whom we will establish with words or artworks, will remain casual.

. What do you want to communicate with your works?

Obviously I do not see myself as a traditional painter.
I see myself more as a storyteller. Although I am continuously improving my "painting" techniques, I use them only as a writing medium.
Like a music composer I try to achieve a more universal language of symbols.
With an alphabet of cultural memories, quotations of the Past, signs of our Everyday reality I try to build up mirrors in which someone could face The Human Condition. Reflections that might revive or invigorate - shared to be - knowledge and values of our society.

. Will you talk us about your experience in the movie world as Art Director?

Working in Film and Television productions as Art Director is a very intense experience. Besides artistic and production knowledge, talent of Social worker, Psychologist and a Geisha is needed.
But it is very rewarding! It is transforming a dream to an approachable reality together with your multitalented family. By working as Art Director I found out how great the pleasure can be: to give shape to the others' dreams and fantasies.

. Are there other artists and movements inspiring you?

What inspires me the most is the essence of the Italian Renaissance, the deepest meaning of this period. But what fascinate me even more are the reasons and the process of its failure.
A lot of artists inspire me, guide me and teach me or make me outrageously jealous.
The classic theater author Euripides tells me that the Gods and the Muses don't live on the Olympus but inside us.
The incredible Homo Universalis : Leonardo da Vinci makes me aware of our abilities.
Giotto and Vermeer assure me that we are able to portray the light and the saints into our human dimensions.
Maria Callas sings to me how innovative our willpower can be, and what does it mean to love unconditionally forever.
Jean Genet teaches me how the freedom and sensuality of the human immorality can be aesthetically exposed.

The images of Sebastian Holmer...

I can go on and on...

. How do you like teaching? What do you think is the best thing in having pupils?

Teaching, making projects together with eager younger humans is the most alive dialog I have ever experienced. I see in front of my eyes, inside my heart, that the experiences, knowledge and passion that I try to transmit, penetrate the evolving abilities of the others. Incorporated with their thirsty talents something new is born.
This has a boomerang effect to me. It gives me great pleasure, and inspiration, and desire to transmit more.
It is almost a pure erotic process.

. Is there a subject or technique you would like to try in the future, as a personal challenge?

Yes there is.
I believe that the Bible was meant to be a Trilogy.
I am planning to try to create its third volume, in an Omnimedial Imaginative form.
I feel that I am studying my whole life just to fulfill this endeavor. Here is the concept in short:
Millennia after the Revelation of John, the scientists invented a surgical method called
“ The Athanatolysis".
After the surgery people never grew older. Men had achieved the promised Immortality. Time, illness, enterprise, arts, hygiene, religion, passion, movement, curiosity, all known human urges to achieve, all creativeness disappeared.
History was forgotten and left place for a lethargic Eternity.
Suddenly an Immortal felt the strange urge to terminate its condition.
He/She invented the means - a language - to talk about it to the others.
Soon The Immortal Disciples [Apostles] began moving around, preaching about the new hoop: That is the day will come that man will be able to die.
The title: The New Revelation.
The last chapter will be named: The Promise.
It will be a Cybernetic publication.

. And what about your other immediate future projects?

Besides the inevitable Omnimedial images:

I have planned for the near future the making of three DVD projects based on three total theater productions of mine, which are already videographed. I will remaster the video material and the soundtracks.
With new images, new digital video takes, and 3D Animations I will reanimate them on a DVD disk.
Their themes are based on masterpieces of the ancient literature and mythology. Electra, Orpheus, and The Birds [ a political comedy of Aristophanes].
I can describe these contemporary versions as extended, no lingual Omnimedial video clips.
Then I will make another extended Omnimedial DVD clip, the visualization of a sound compilation of everyday life, featuring a kaleidoscope of the Sacre du Printems of Stravinsky, Byzantine psalms, Old Blues of Billie Holiday and excerpts of songs of Madonna , Zarah Leander and Eminem.

. Why do you think photography is more often accused of being offensive if it depicts nudity while a nude painting is excused for being "artistic"?

I think that:
We humans are basically ashamed of the horrifying natural weaknesses of our bodies. Although this makes us, of course, quit inventive.
Our instincts to survive the violence of the Nature and the cruelty of our own aesthetics lead us from Knitting a sweater, Murdering for a fur coat to Plastic surgery.
Photography sounds Realism. A photo sounds publicity. And photo is not very expensive. Nude photography is accused of being offensive mostly by people addicted to Pornography.
It always happened.
Goya's naked prostitute, the Maja Desnuda was obscene for the decadence of the pervert Spanish Aristocracy. But in our times of digital realism it is a priceless object.

. Is the artist always a sign of his times or is art beyond time and space?

Each of us, Homo sapiens, has only five sensors. Supposed that we use our senses in they full capacities, then we enact for our selves our own Time-Space Continuum.
All these 6.375.401.714 [planet population up to this second] individual Continui melt together into one unsurpassed Time-Space Perpetuum.
Nothing can exist - to our perception limits - beyond our construction of Time and Space. Does this answer the question?
Does Time and Space exist? I really don't know, someone should ask an Artist about it!

. Many artists now have websites presenting their works on virtual galleries in the Internet. Don't you think the lack of physical closeness to the painting could turn it all into a kind of fictitious experience?

It depends on for whom the presented work is created.
Artwork is the result of its maker's uncontrollable urge to share it. Even if it is projected on a cloud it will arouse physical closeness.
Artwork created out of seeking self-satisfaction, obviously, should remain hidden indoors.

. If you were to list the most important values in your life at present, which would be at first place? Are they the same as when you were younger?

The most important for me is:
To omit Perfection.
To focus and explore the road which leads to Perfection.
And, that the Child inside me remains, as always has being, very much alive.
Desiring to explore my abilities, my talents by avoiding exploiting them.

. If you were to live again, what would you like to be?

Me, Apostolos! Exact the same person as I am in this life.
No more no less.
To live, inexperienced, my life again and again would be wonderful.

. What is your biggest fear these days? And what makes you happy anyway?

. Fear?
Recently millions pairs of eyes were watching a great ceremony.
During this ceremony Mother Teresa got the holy status. A woman who devoted her life for the well-being of children, in need.
At the same time other million pairs of eyes were watching the living Goddess of Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa Oprah Winfrey promoting the latest diet or - with TV tears on her chicks - the latest Psychotherapeutic cure for domestic western world family problems.
At the same time every SEVEN seconds a child dies from hunger.
At the same time in an In Vitro Fertilization Institute, frozen embryos are waiting in their cryogenic lethargy to participate in our Reality.
That is a fact, which excitingly aggravates me. Then the Fear in me takes shape.
I am afraid that soon the scientists will discover how to travel in the interplanetary, interstellar, even intergalactic space.
Then, the whole known Universe will be contaminated, Mc DONALDISED. The idea horrifies me.

. Happiness?
Our Destiny can suddenly turn our happiness - like turning a page - to despair.
Like a sponge filled with water, the Destiny can wipe out our happiness. Like an unsuccessful drawing!
There were dark periods in my life when I felt really despaired. When the despair became unbearable I realizes that it couldn't be worst. That- in comparison- the next moment could only be better. Even progressively better. And I was always right! It became always better.
The knowledge of the existence of this natural process makes me excitingly happy.

Still, Fear and Happiness have their own beauty and poetry and they can be the inspiring source of great achievements. This is Life.
Although we fall uninvited in the center of its kaleidoscope, all perspectives to enjoy it are sorted inside us.
With my image "The Fall of ICARUS" I have tried to portray me in between all these thoughts. I pretend that it is my self-portrait, because the photo of the baby in front is I when I was three months old.

. How is the relationship between the artist and art in your personal experience? Is it a continuous passion or can it turn to routine?

Art for the artist is like breath for men.

But I know that there are artists who wake up in the morning, look at their bellybutton and after breakfast take their tools and materials and make a Portrait of it.

.

© Interview with Apostolos Panagopoulos
by Barbara Tampieri
Reprinted under permission, © 2003, Barbara Tampieri - BTDesign Art Gallery http://www.barbaratampieri.com

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Biographical Note

I was born in Thessalonica, North Greece and I was brought up in Athens.
During my short Greek period I start studying Visual Arts and Theatre but I left Greece at a very young age for numerous reasons. I immigrated to The Netherlands’s where I live permanently. In the Netherlands I continued my studies, History of Art, at the University of Utrecht.

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During this period I worked together with various Dutch sculptors and composers, participating in numerous joint audiovisual projects and exhibitions in Dutch, German and Italian Galleries and Museums. At the same time I worked as Art Director in several Dutch Art Film Productions.

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Then my focus shifted and I worked intensely in the Dutch Theatre exploring and combining on stage all facets of the Arts resulting into a rich Audio-Visual Alive Art form.

A succession of 35 projects came to live. A repertory inspired by the Classic Greek, Elizabethan, and contemporary Mythology, Literature and Music. Exploring the Symbiosis and the conflict of the Classic and Up to Date Cultural and Technological Elements.

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Most of the 90’s I was invited to teach about these forms. I worked as head teacher at the Academy of Arts of Utrecht leading the - especially designed for this purpose – faculty Theatron Design. In addition I worked in the Dutch Television in Cultural TV Productions mostly as Art Director.

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But starting 1998, determined to express all my experiences into a more approachable form, I began creating images. In the beginning I used traditional methods: oil - color combined with egg - tempera on prepared wooden panels according to Byzantine and Renaissance techniques. Then, after getting acquainted with the possibilities of the Computer I discovered a - new to me - vehicle for my expression needs. Combining traditional techniques together with various image and video processing computer programs I create till this very moment, images and audiovisual forms: Omnimedial Images

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My inspiration sources and aims remain always the same. I do see myself not so much as a traditional painter but more as a storyteller. Although I am –continuously - improving my techniques, I use them only as a writing medium.
Same way as a music composer I try to achieve a more universal language. With an alphabet of cultural memories, quotations of the Past, Signs of our Everyday Reality I try to build up mirrors in which someone could face The Human Condition. Reflections that might revive or invigorate - shared to be - knowledge and values of our society. For the viewer who does not desire this, it must always be an aesthetically satisfactory image.

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