I am a self-taught Artist living in Sydney. I began drawing from an early age and experimented with paint and other mediums from the age of 12.
My passion and specialty is Greek art, with inspiration drawn from themes depicting Ancient Greece, as well as other genres. I have been commissioned to paint, draw, design and create murals for numerous cafes, restaurants and private residences both here and overseas. Easily motivated to create, I especially enjoy painting murals, two of which are on display in café restaurants in Greece. I have no boundaries.
My life is my art. My work has been exhibited at the Greek Embassy in Canberra, The Hellenic Club, Canberra, and ‘Hellenic Inspirations’ Tap Gallery, Sydney.
Constantinos (Costas) Emmanuelle is currently the Lead Teacher for the Visual Arts Department at Melbourne Polytechnic in Melbourne, Australia. As a practising artist, Costas has explored and investigated his cultural heritage through disciplines such as, illustration, photography, drawing, painting, graphic design and digital imaging.
Costas’ most ambitious creative journey so far has been a personal crusade to document the living memories of his parent’s generation in a cultural arts project called ‘Tales of Cyprus’. This multi-disciplinary art project explores his parent’s homeland of Cyprus and its culture and traditional way of life prior to the 1950’s. In this project Costas’ also documents stories of migration and new beginnings as many of his target subjects left Cyprus in the 1940s, 50s and 60s to resettled and start new lives in countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Europe, Canada and the United States of America.
Costas’ first exhibition for Tales of Cyprus took place at the Chapel off Chapel gallery in Prahran (Melbourne) in 2014. The exhibition included original drawings, paintings and photography. Large panels displayed reproductions of rare old family photos with various quotations and translations derived from personal interviews Costas conducted with members of the Cypriot diaspora. The topic of displacement, migration and cultural identity was also explored in the exhibition.
More recently, Costas has written, designed and self-published a hard-bound book titled “Tales of Cyprus: A tribute to a bygone era.” The book contains the living memories and life stories of over forty elderly Cypriots who were born and lived in Cyprus during the first half of the 20th Century. Costas had spent seven years interviewing and documenting the living memories of elderly Cypriots from the Cypriot diaspora in Australia and other parts of the world. The book, written in English is therefore a recollection of a way of life that has all but disappeared.
2014 – TAE40110 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (NMIT – Melbourne)
2010 – Diploma of Vocational Education and Training (Vet) Practice (NMIT)
2006 – Graduate Diploma of Education: Applied Learning (Deakin Uni – Melbourne)
1995 – Bachelor of Arts in Education – Tertiary Education (Curtin Uni – Perth)
1982 – Diploma of Arts / Graphic Design (Phillip Insitute – Melbourne)
Trained in the Animation Studios of Hanna Barbera and Disney, I continued to work in Animation as both an Animator and Character Concept Artist for the next 25 years.
I also worked as an Illustrator for books and product concept art and design.
My work has always centred on, and evolved from, the pencil mark on paper.
I attended the National Art school in 2008-2010 to expand on my art skills, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, Painting Major, with Distinction across all disciplines. Invited to continue in an Honours Degree in Drawing, I chose to defer and just enjoy being a creative artist. I found that I was irresistibly ‘drawn’ to the simplicity, immediacy, and the honesty, of the pencil line on paper.
In 2011, I entered my first art competition, The Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing, and was honoured to be announced the Winner for 2011.
Over the next few years I participated in both Solo and Group exhibitions in various galleries, in both Australia and Greece, as well as group exhibitions as finalist in various art competitions.
ARTISTIC PRACTICE
In my artistic practice the relationship of line, space, and place creates the dialogue that I choose to communicate with the viewer of my works. The subjects I draw are layers of fine vertical lines that create the form and define the subject. These lines are best seen from close viewing as they disappear when viewing from a distance. The vertical line is my “obsession”.
I enjoy the immediacy and simplicity of pencil on paper.
That is the beauty of “The Drawing”. It can be portable, disposable, spontaneous, deliberate, temporary, permanent. A quick sketch that captures the gesture or a detailed drawing that pushes the essence of the gesture to make it a detailed character analysis of the subject.
I walk every day, everywhere. I see things that I want to express as a drawing on paper. Pencil and paper are always on hand to record what I see. That is the beauty of the materials. Their immediacy and availability allow for the spontaneous and the more detailed work. My drawings are more than just drawings of any animal or any place. They are records of the places I have visited and the animals I have encountered in these places.
Pencil on paper is my drawing practice and the starting point to all my artistic practice.
DRAWING THE ANIMAL
“Drawing the Animal” is a collection of works and part of my continuing theme that All Life Matters.
Too often we look but don’t actually see. I draw what I see. The simple materials, pencil on paper, best translate what I see to what I want others to see. The subjects that I choose to draw are what I see around me. Most times I chance upon them in my own backyard, and my daily walks through the streets, parks, and beaches in my neighbourhood. On other occasions I seek them, when travelling in other countries, in zoos, aquariums, farms, animals shows, and museums. There is endless inspiration that will keep me drawing for the rest of my life.
I enjoy observing animals and their interactions with their environment, with each other, and with the artist as observer. As the “artist as observer”, the first thing I want to capture is that moment when the animal I am either watching, drawing, or photographing, actually watches me. Eye contact with an animal is a special feeling as it is in that moment that I actually see, and it is in that moment also that I realise that all life has a soul, that all life has dignity, that all life has compassion, that all life wants to live. All life matters. Karen Barbouttis.
Exhibitions
2020 Art2Muse Gallery, Double Bay, Sydney 2018 Art2Muse Gallery, Double Bay, Sydney 2017 Art2Muse Gallery, Double Bay, Sydney 2016 Art2Muse Gallery, Double Bay, Sydney 2015 Art2Muse Gallery, Double Bay, Sydney 2015 “Lemnos – the Greek Dimension in the Anzac Centenary”, an Exhibition presented by the Embassy of Greece in Australia, Canberra. 2015 “In Red – 100 years from the Battle of Gallipoli” . Ochra Gallery, Thessoloniki, Greece. 2014 “Creatures”. Solo exhibition, S.G. art gallery, Athens, Greece. 2014 “Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing”. PLC Sydney. 2013 “Sydney Childrens Hospital Spring Exhibition”. Sydney Childrens Hospital, Randwick. 2013 Flanagan Art Prize, Ballarat. 2013 “Flora and Fauna”. Syndicate at Danks, Sydney 2013 Wilson Visual Arts Award, Lismore 2013 “St Spyridon College The Arts Exhibition 2013”. Invited Artist, Sydney 2013 Waverly Art Prize, Bondi-Waverly School of Arts, Sydney 2013 “All Creatures Great and Small”.Solo exhibition, Art2Muse, Sydney. 2013 “Nurturing Hellenic Heritage the Australian Way”. Hellenic Lyceum Sydney, Parliament House, Sydney. 2013 “Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing”. PLC, Sydney 2012 “The Mortimore Prize”. Sydney. 2012 “arc Yinnar Biennial Art Prize”. 2012 “Hunters hill Art Exhibition”. Sydney 2012 “Animals Exhibition”. Syndicate at Danks, Sydney 2012 “Drawings from The Animal Walk”. St Vincents Hospital, Sydney. 2012 “BSG Works on Paper Prize”. Fitzroy. 2012 Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing 2011 “Drawings from The Museum of Life”. St Vincents Hospital, Sydney. 2011 “Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing”. PLC, Sydney. 2010 “Selected Student Graduate drawing Exhibition”. National Art School, Sydney. 2010 National Art School Graduate Show, Sydney. 2009 “Exhibition of Selected Student Sketchbooks”. Stairwell gallery, National Art School, Sydney. 2009 “A Week on Cockatoo.”, Selected Student Work from the National Art School, Cockatoo Island, Sydney
Born in Africa, I learned the skills of photography in a shop in Addis Ababa for a period of 5 years. I developed black and white and colour negatives, as well as the printing and development of slides, reattaching negatives and colourizing photographs with oil transparent paints. I migrated to Australia 50 years ago and studied digital painting and website production at TAFE.
Digital painting is something I love and have learnt using computers, digital photography and colour. 3D Photography is and has been a hobby for many years.
I am the editor of the Anagnostis e-Magazine which promotes Greek Australian writers and poets, artists, photographers, movie/film makers throughout Australia.
Alex Litsoudis is a Greek-Australian visual and performing artist with an intellectual disability.
Alex has been a well-known performer for over 25 years. His experience includes performances in the ABC series Seven Types of Ambiguity, A place called Maze (La Mama Theatre), Light of the Mind (Nocturnal Festival). In 2011, he produced his first autobiographical film, titled “Who is He?”, which was shown at various international film festivals and also aired on TV in Melbourne and Greece. The film was a semi finalist at the 2018 London Greek Film Festival. Alex is also a founding member of Fusion Theatre, an inclusive performance company.
Alex is also a practicing visual artist. He is involved with Artability, an inspiring visual arts program run by ADEC (Action on Disability within Ethnic Communities). In his first solo exhibition, which he has worked towards for a number of years, his artist statement reads-
‘Alex Litsoudis has been a practicing visual artist for over ten years. His passion is the creation of stories through painting, watching the canvas come alive with his ideas. Many of Alex’s paintings are memories from his childhood, or places he has visited, capturing moments and places that are important to him and which he seeks to share with his audience. This body of work, created over a number of years, showcases Alex’s wide-ranging talent and sensitivity in capturing his thoughts and ideas.
