Yanis Zagorianakos

Yanis holds a BSC in Industrial Chemistry and Design from The City University London,  he is also a self-taught painter & craftsman making him an artist with a highly developed scientific interest and an inquisitive approach. 

Born in Athens, he grew up briefly in South Africa as a very young child, and not so briefly in Athens. He moved to London at the age of 17 where he studied and worked as a Research Scientist & Designer in Electrochemistry. After 15 years he moved back to Athens, gave up working as a scientist and started travelling to India, where 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 25 years. He lives between the islands of Aegina & Amorgos where he works. In 2013 he created The Cool Projects, part of which is Aegina Retreats, with his partner in life Marina.

Yanis 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 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 drawn from the implications of these theories irrespective of whether they have been accepted by the Sciences establishment and/or have been proven to be correct. And, of course, from some very favourite artists - masters through their work and what 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 as, if not more, 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, to a Yanis from the past, and thus he is already working on something else.