Yanis Zagorianakos or YZagor is a self-taught craftsman and artist. He has a BSC in Industrial Chemistry and Design from The City University London, making him an artist with a highly developed scientific interest and an inquisitive approach.
Born in Athens, he grew up between Athens, Johannesburg and London. He moved permanently to London at the age of 17, where he first studied and then worked as a Project scientist & designer carrying out research & innovation. After 15 years he moved back to Athens, gave up working as a scientist and started traveling to India, where by chance he got introduced to Arts & Crafts. For the next 10 years he regularly visited India and took seminars in various crafts and numerous workshops in painting in London and Athens while working as a full time artist/craftsman for the last 30 years. He now lives between the islands of Aegina & Amorgos where he works.
Statement
He has a broad interest in the materials he uses for his creations. He has worked with wood, metal, fabric, glass, and is always on the lookout for new materials and new combinations. In painting he works with watercolours, acrylics, oxidations, oil, collage… and almost anything he can put his hands on, which can fit the works.
His basic sources of inspiration are: the subconscious, dreams, fantasy, memory, feelings, randomness, chaos, the microscopic and macroscopic…
He likes working with pretty much everything: watercolors, acrylics, oils, oxidations, collage, fabric on canvas, paper, metal, wood and basically mixed media.
He usually starts a painting with a very flexible idea, a memory or a feeling, and allow room for constructive randomness and chance. Always experimenting with different or altered perspectives, and more interested in the fragmented, deformed, out of focus way of perceiving and expressing “reality”. Concentrating more in the just before becoming or just after existing of what there is, more in feelings and emotion then shape or form.
His scientific side has been engaged in an ongoing work in progress dealing with various theories around Cognitive Science and Psychology, Quantum Physics and Biology, String Theory, Holographic Theory, Space and Water. He ponders and researches on how these theories can be expressed from an artistic point of view.
Inspiration is also drawn from the implications of these theories irrespective of whether they have been accepted by the science establishment. And, of course, from some very favorite artists, who have functioned as masters through their work and the heritage they have left.
The aspect of randomness is hugely important in his work, and he encourages it. He looks for the accidents and what these can offer to the work. He values the process of creation almost as much, if not more, as the end result, which, in many ways is as ephemeral as the process itself. The artwork is the accumulation of all the experiences as they have been shaped, formed and finalised. That is how they exist in the given moment. Once finished, the piece belongs to the past.
In his work but also in life he has failed many times for different reasons and that is what he considers his main source of education and inspiration.
www.yzagor.co.uk
Exhibitions:
2004 Anemos Gallery, Athens
2007 Astrolavos Gallery, Athens
2008 Cats & Marbles Gallery, Athens
2009 Visages de l'Art, Thisisnotagallery, Athens
2010 Cultural Center of Amorgos
2011 Booze Cooperativa, Athens
2012 M-Art Gallery, Athens
2018 Alexandra Solomou Gallery Aegina
2019 Perdikiotika Bar/Restaurant Aegina
2022 Proka Bar Aegina
2022 Group show - Markellos Tower - Aegina
2023 Group Show - Markellos Tower - Aegina
2024 Group Show - Cultural Center of Patmos