I am a Sculptor and Painter with a passion for story telling through art with a focus on themes that are inspired by my Hellenic heritage and modern art.
I have expertise in Painting, Sculpture, Street Art and Murals, Installation, Performance Art and Graphic Design. My training in Art Therapy and role as a co-founder of the Melbourne Art Therapy Studio, provided me with additional skills in the therapeutic application of the visual arts in both clinical and private, individual and group settings.
Bachelor Degree in Visual Arts /South Australian School of Art, Australia Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts/ Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece Erasmus Scholarship/Madrid School of Fine Arts, Spain Master of Art Therapy/ La Trobe University, Melbourne
Antonios Baxevanidis was born in Likostomo Pellas on the 15 May 1944 as the civil war was ravaging Greece. He was two weeks old when his parents returned to Thessaloniki. He attended the technical school of electrical engineering in Thessaloniki and was also a keen cyclist and basketball player. He served in the Greek army for two years.
In 1968 he migrated to Australia and his love for theatre and cinema led him to study the Stanislavski method of acting with Shayna Hevron. He also studied at Crawford productions film school and went on to his first acting role with the Malvern Theatre Co. playing Mr Apopolos in “My Sister Eileen”. He attended theatre workshops at the Melbourne Actors Lab with Peter Kalos.
He also worked as a freelance photojournalist and he is a member of AJA well known for his photograph of Nelson Mandela which was published by Kodak.
Film credits include Kostas (1979) by Paul Cox, Malcolm (1986) by Nadia Tass, The Young Wife (1984) ABC series, The Keepers (1984) ABC, Dougherty SBS, Flowers of Rethymnon by John Tatoulis SBS, Prisoner: Cell Block H (1979), Eisai to tairi mou! (2001) Greek television series. He also appeared in Acropolis Now (1989), 10 Easy Steps (2014) with Louis Mandylor from My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), It’s a Date (2013)ABC and Dream Of a Shadow, a Greek Australian production.
Antonios is a member of the Actors Equity of Australia MEAA and has taken part in over 50 short films, and numerous commercials.
Theatre credits include: The Respectful Prostitute, The Shifting Heart, Zoo Story , Scapino, Pluto by Aristophanes directed by Michael Nikoloudis from the Northern Theatre of Greece, Salonica Bound at La Mamma theatre by Tom Petsinis, directed by David Myles, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest HST Theatre directed by David Myles.
Antonios has also taken part in over 12 music videos. His recent success was in the music video of Tones and I: Dance Monkey (2019) that has over 1.8 billion million views.
Jenny Dumont has travelled to many countries over the years to paint and view the work of past and present masters. She worked as an artist and teacher during her time living in Greece, Canada and since 2008 in her Bayside art studio in Melbourne Australia. Originally trained in Graphic Design but greatly inspired by the Surrealist movement with artists such as Dali, Man Ray and Duchamp. She went on to blend and create works that explore several different mediums and styles from modern acrylics and traditional oils to abstract inks and resins.
Her journey with resin as an art medium began in 2014 with works executed on custom made round boards and canvas. Inspiration came mainly from nature especially flowers, the beautiful local Bayside beaches, and the landscape of this earth in general. She mixes inks, pigments and powders with clear resin which is then poured in layers to create a composition that is fluid, has depth and is rich in colour and visual texture.
Jenny’s artist journey reflects her love of Surrealist ideals of juxtaposing images, mediums and methods. These attributes are an influence on her style and belief that, ‘not all needs to be as we know it’. Whilst working with and teaching resin, she began experimenting with the creation of art through furniture. Leaning on her experience as a wood and metal craft teacher, her love of art and mixing mediums, Jenny sourced home furnishings with unique architecture and their potential for metamorphosis. Each piece is lovingly restored, reinvented, and adorned with a piece of resin art, one of a kind and unique to that piece.
Today, Jenny is a full-time artist, Secondary teacher and entrepreneur. She continues to work with mixed media, experimenting with the vast boundaries this medium has to offer. She stands by the belief that, ‘an artist should not be branded but be a conduit, a forever evolving fluid medium’. Private collections of her work are held in Greece, Singapore, Canada, United Kingdom and Brazil.
Exhibitions:
1999 Pylaia Art Gallery Greece
2003 Matticks Farm Art Gallery Canada
2004 Vancouver Island Food and Wine Festival
2009 Canterbury Art Show Melbourne
2010 Beaumaris Art Group2014 Art for Life
2013-2021 Bluethumb Art Gallery
2015 Antipodean Palette Steps Gallery Carlton
2015 The Bayside Art Show
2015 Mingara Art Gallery Phillip Island
2015 Emerging Art Gallery Windsor
2015-2016 Without Pier Gallery Bayside
2017 Beaumaris Art & Craft Exhibition
2015 November issue of Inside Out Magazine
Bachelor of Education in Art and Design, Melbourne University (1985-1989)
Secondary Art and Design teacher, Arts coordinator, State examiner and mentor for VCE art students (1990-1992)
Professional exhibiting artist and teacher (1993-current)
Co-founder of Steaming Ink Design Partnership (advertising, graphic design and photography)
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.
