Artist’s CV
Sorogas Sotiris was born in Athens in 1936. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Athens as an IKY scholarship (1957-1961), with G. Moralis. He also attended the iconography workshop of ASKT from 1962, to get to know Byzantine painting, which always interested him. His first solo exhibition was presented in Athens in 1972 (Athens Art Gallery – Hilton) and in the same year he received an annual grant from the Ford Foundation.
In his early works there was an affinity with the politicized photorealistic tendencies of the dictatorship era (use of black and white photographs, spots of red color, etc.). Soon, however, his personal thematics were formed centered on the poetic approach of decay and time.
His painting utilizes the precision of drawing in compositions that are often monochromatic and fragmentary, where the lyrical narrative elements are developed through the dialogue of the objects with the space. The thematic units he has presented (words, Black Openings, Female Portraits, Old Wood, Rust, etc.) refer to human or historical memory, through images that combine sensitive observation with structural perfection.
From 1964 he started teaching design at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens, initially as an assistant to Takis Martha in the Department of Painting. He gradually became a professor and taught until 2003 (emeritus professor of NTUA since 2005).
He was a member of many collective forms (indicative: Association of ASKT Graduates, Association of Contemporary Art, Group for Communication and Education in Art). He was also a member of the editorial board of the art theory magazine Spira and a founding member of the Society for the Study of Hellenic Culture (2010).
He participated in conferences, workshops and other events on art and culture issues. He writes frequently in magazines and newspapers, publishes theoretical texts and has published books, while several monographic studies of his work have been published. He has presented his painting in many individual and group exhibitions, in Greece and abroad. In 1981 he represented Greece at the Sao Paulo Biennale.
He also participated in Europalia (1982, Belgium) and the 21st International Painting Festival (1989, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France). In 2004 he was awarded by the Academy of Athens for his overall contribution to art. In 2010, six of his large compositions were installed at the Larissa Station of the Athens Metro.
His retrospective exhibitions were organized in 2010 (Cultural Organization of Trikkaia Municipality, Makri Foundation, Trikala) and in 2011 at the Benaki Museum
