Artist Biography:
Olga Stamatiou was born in New York City in 1946. She began painting in 1967, at the age of twenty-one. This relatively late start to her artistic career followed the discovery of painting as a vehicle for cathartic personal expression. At the age of eighteen, she went to live with relatives in Athens, Greece and it was there in the heady, intellectually charged, artistically-vibrant atmosphere of mid-1960’s that she was stirred to begin her formal artistic education, studying with the painter Ilias Dekoulakos.
She remained in Greece until 1976, when she returned to the United States and embarked on further studies at Boston University’s School of Fine Arts, where she received her BFA and MFA degree in painting. She also completed a graduate program in Art Therapy at the Metropolitan College of Boston University. She lived in America for the next 20 years, exhibiting and working in the United States. In 1997, she returned once again to Greece with her husband where they lived for five years. During that time, she had exhibitions in Athens, Greece and Nice, France. They are currently residing in Beaufort, South Carolina.
In 2004 she started a non-profit company called Seewall Child which builds and installs interactive art based displays free of charge in crisis centers for children. Funds are raised through the making and selling of a variety of products. Olga and her company were recognized for their efforts in 2007, receiving a Society in Arts in Healthcare Blair Sadler Award. It was said to be one of the most innovative arts projects demonstrating compelling impact on the quality of the healthcare experience for patients, their families and care givers.
I approach my work in an intuitive, direct, honest, brave way, always mindful of formal concerns. If I have a definite idea, I quickly put it down on canvas in a sketchy broad manner and proceed from there. If I have no idea of what I want to paint, I begin by painting broad masses of color and lines on canvas until something curious emerges from within. I go back and forth, in and out. I scrub, scrape, paint, and wipe with rags. I constantly stir up the bottom bringing up life from under the surfaces.
Currently exciting about my work is the new format of using small canvases and linking them together through the use of patterns, lines, broad color masses, and repetitive motifs thus allowing for a much broader, contemplative and rhythmic vision to emerge. The process of painting excites me the most, not the outcome. While clarity is important, I love the sense of power that comes from the unrefined nature of things.
-Olga Stamatiou
