Aurora

Chris Gianakos was born in New York in 1934. When he was six months old, he returned to Crete with his family. The years he spent on the island marked him, even though he was still very young and his consciousness had not yet formed. Upon his return to New York and completing his schooling, he began studying graphic design at the School of Visual Arts (1952-56), where he later taught, and for several years, he worked as a freelance designer. This professional engagement brought him into contact with the design challenges of geometric shapes, and he was fascinated by the structural proportions of typography with architecture. His initial artistic efforts were part of the minimalist movement.
In the 1960s, Gianakos presented assemblages and constructions with boxes and experimented with resin moulds reminiscent of archetypal forms, gradually resembling Egyptian pyramids. He carried out installations and events in public spaces with ephemeral characteristics using white powders and sacks of flour. In the early 1970s, he started creating his "ramps," which would occupy him for more than thirty years and would become his most characteristic and representative work. At the same time, a series of his paintings in acrylic paints and graphite on wooden surfaces were inspired by the reflections created on the glass planes of his structures. In the ALPHA Series section of artworks, on digitally processed photographs of archaeological sites, historical places, monuments and statues, he applies corresponding geometric shapes, expressing conceptually and symbolically, according to his own interpretation, the fundamental spirit of various manifestations of human civilization.
Chris Gianakos has exhibited his work in solo exhibitions in New York, Sweden, Brussels, Athens, at the State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, among other places. He has also participated in significant international events and group exhibitions and has executed permanent and periodic installations of his works in public spaces worldwide.