Katherine Chouliaras Lewis

An Australian Artist born in Melbourne and residing in Rosanna, Victoria. Katherine’s love for drawing and painting began at an early age along with her fascination for archaeology, science, flora, fauna and her inspiration is nature and colour. She enjoys experimenting with different art mediums, styles, surfaces and techniques and her years of experience in painting and drawing is seen in her artworks which vary in style from abstract, contemporary and traditional, in subject matter such as fauna and flora, portraits, landscapes, seascapes and free form abstracts, and mediums from acrylics, oils, pastels, watercolour, scratch board, pencil and mixed media.

Katherine was ‘Artist in Residence’ at the ‘Mungga Studio’, ‘Ivanhoe Library & Cultural Hub’ from April 11-18, 2021. During her successful residency, she painted, exhibited and conducted workshops for children and adults in ‘Pull String Art’ technique. Katherine has been exhibiting her artworks since 1992 at many art shows such as The Victorian Artists’ Society, Heidelberg Artists’ Society, Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show, ‘Urban Crafter’ Brunswick St, Fitzroy and ‘Riot Art’ Northland Preston. Also at Argyle on the Park, Maroochydore, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Camberwell Rotary Show, Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar, Alphington Grammar, Loyola College, Parade College and Banyule Art ‘Winter Exhibition’ Austin Hospital, Heidelberg.

Her signature artworks are her abstracts/contemporary art. The contemporary artwork ‘Autumn Spirit’ was selected for nomination for the ‘Undine Autumn Landscape Award’ by the Victorian Artists’ Society in 2016. Katherine is a member of various Artists’ Societies: since 1995, the Victorian Artists’ Society and Banyule Pinpoint; since 2015, the Heidelberg Artists’ Society; Contemporary Artists’ Society; Victorian Pastel Artists’ Society; Wildlife Artists’ Society Australia and since 2021, the Diamond Valley Artists’ Society.

Her other passions are photography and travelling and she uses many of her photos for reference and inspiration. She accepts commissions and also works from photographs.

Artist in Residence at Banyule.vic.gov.au
Banyule Open Studios

BACK TO ARTIST DIRECTORY

Constantinos Emmanuelle

CALL

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)

To view more of Costa’s work please visit www.talesofcyprus.com.

BACK TO ARTIST DIRECTORY

Sofia Xeros-Constantinides

Sophia Xeros-Constantinides’ art-making was re-awakened as a mother of two. Once Sebastian and Bianca were both at school she was able to study Fine Art part-time as a mature-aged student at Monash University, Caulfield Campus. Prior to this, Sophia had seen her dear mother, Maria Xeros Colbert, learn to paint at summer school in Melbourne in the 1960s, under the direction of artists Robert Grieve and Dawn Westbrook, and later Sophia saw Maria extend her embroidery skills to new heights at the Embroiderer’s Guild, Victoria.

Through her clinical work as a Medical Doctor and Psychological Therapist treating pregnant women and new mothers, Sophia started to explore the visualisation of women’s reproductive experiences. This led Sophia to use drawing, printmaking and collage in her post-graduate art-making, to create her own visual metaphors for the complex and often traumatic reproductive experiences that women reported to her and to others. Sophia’s own maternal grandmother, Yiayia Evdokia, lost her first-born babe-in-arms Eleftheria when they had to flee Smyrna before the catastrophe in September 1922. Later, Evdokia had thirteen more pregnancies but only five babies survived to grow as children and adults.

In her Collage work, Sophia explores the female form and questions what it is to be human. Her art-practice is characterised by appropriation and juxtaposition that manifest in her collage works on paper and in her prints and drawings. These works challenge integrity and identity, recall surrealistic and uncanny forces and give expression to alternative realities.

Since completing her PhD, Sophia has taken up Painting in oils and gouache. For this she has ventured to Europe, and back to England, where she had lived for eight years, in her secondary school years, in Birmingham with her aunt Margaret Ryle and her dear Uncle Nick. She finds inspiration in the traditions of European art, in figurative painting, in colour and in representing the interface between Nature and (Western) Culture.

QUALIFICATIONS
1998-2001: Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University
2002-2005: Masters of Fine Art (by Research) Monash University (Thesis Title: “Procreative Bodies Envisioned: A Visual Exploration of Female Reproductive Experiences.”)
2006-2017: Doctor of Philosophy (Fine Art)(by Research), Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University. (Thesis Title: “Strangers in a Strange Land: Envisioning the Darker side of Motherhood.”)

ART THERAPY PUBLICATION
‘Myself as a Tree: The enabling power of an Art Therapy intervention in clinical work with post-natally distressed women-mothers’ in “Therapeutic Arts in Pregnancy, Birth and New Parenthood” Edited by Susan Hogan, Routledge, New York, 2021.

SELECTED PRIZES / AWARDS
2012: Mayoral Art Prize Maroondah City Council (acquisitive)
2006: Prize-winner (acquisitive) textile art in Fabricate 2006, Embroiderers’ Guild, Vic
2002: Australian Postgraduate Award

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2016: Bitter-Sweet Embrace PhD Exam Exhibition, Monash Uni, MADA Gallery, Caulfield
2013: More Earthly Delights, Catherine Asquith Gallery, Collingwood
2012: Earthly Delights, Jackman Gallery St Kilda. 20-page catalogue, Earthly Delights
2010: Bedlam: The bitter-sweet embrace of motherhood, Maroondah Art Gallery, exhibition of collage, drawings and digital prints. 28-page catalogue, Bedlam
2009: Gestate – AAIMH/Marcé Conference Solo Exhibition, University of Melbourne
2006: Running with Pigs – Solo Exhibition exploring peri-natal loss, P.O. Gallery, Ballarat
2005: Concoct – Masters Fine Art by Research Exhibition, Monash Faculty Gallery, Caulfield
2001: Template: Beginnings & Becomings-An exploration of women’s experience in relation to reproduction, Women’s Bodies/History Conference, University of Melbourne

BACK TO ARTIST DIRECTORY

Nicholas Alexander Moraitis

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.

BACK TO ARTIST DIRECTORY

Mary Raphael

CALL

A contemporary artist and tutor, born in North West Greece, Mary arrived in Australia as an older child with her family.

Mary’s love of art began at an early age, continually pursuing various creative avenues such as painting, pottery, project and design to discover where her artistic passion lay. All the knowledge gained throughout her studies contributed to her skill as an artist and she has been consistently involved with painting and art projects ever since.

Nature, the environment and her travels in Australia and overseas have all been strong influences in her work. Having lived and worked in Darwin with extensive travel throughout the Northern Territory, Mary has attended and facilitated various painting workshops whilst also observing indigenous artists create their own unique and beautiful art.

“…the burnt sienna land and cobalt blue sea, are brought to life by colour and texture, appearing out of worldly and spiritual, become my inspiration to create, to dream, to visit. My art expresses the beauty of nature, the energy and spirituality around me, of peace, tranquillity and freedom. My art is of contemporary style with the use of vibrant colours, variety of techniques, textures, materials and mediums, it conveys the essence of my outback experiences. The vast red centre, the salt lakes, the deserts, the blue hues of the surrounding sea and my own exploration of the remote outback, where the elements of colour, texture, energy, and spirituality combine, inspire my need to express on canvas and through my paintings….I relive the mystique, the enormity, and uniqueness of our land…”

Mary has exhibited and sold her art extensively in both solo and group exhibitions and her art graces the walls of many art lovers and collectors both in Australia and Overseas.

Her paintings are currrently showing at Ryazanoff Gallery and Nissarana Gallery in Victoria.

Listed below are some of the galleries Mary has exhibited, both in solo and group exhibitions:

  • Quadrant Gallery Hawthorn Vic
  • Steps Gallery Carlton Vic
  • Collingwood Gallery Collingwood Vic
  • Frankston Art Center Frankston Vic
  • Oakhill Gallery Mornington Vic
  • Yarra Sculpture Gallery Abbotsford Vic
  • Eltham Gallery Eltham Vic
  • Ryazanoff Gallery Albert Park Vic
  • Nissarana Gallery Mornington Vic
  • Broom Art House Broom WA
  • Open Studio Art Shows Darwin NT
BACK TO ARTIST DIRECTORY

Alex Litsoudis

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.

BACK TO ARTIST DIRECTORY

Nicholas Mamouzis

CALL

Nicholas started off his musical journey at a young age. From primary school through high school Nicholas perfected the art of playing drums. In the 1990’s he began playing with several local wedding bands and as a DJ performer at bars and nightclubs around Melbourne.

By 2000 Nicholas was well into the DJ business and performed as a percussionist on a regular basis. In 2010 he stepped back from the club scene and entered the corporate world of weddings, engagements and private functions.

Nicholas continues to build on his musical career with his motivation and tireless dedication in becoming a truly unique and highly requested musical performer, drummer and percussionist who has also mastered the toubeleki, a Greek traditional drum instrument often used in the traditional folk rhythms of Greek laiko and rebetiko music.

BACK TO ARTIST DIRECTORY