Artist's StatementSculpture in the round allows me to speak in a way that's most important to me, essentially through human form. I arrange form to satisfy a personal view of my subject. What I aim for is to create figures that have movement and a strong sense of design. Drawing for me is similar, the difference being illusion of form as opposed to actual form. Relief satisfies both of those needs. The ArtistAnthony Antonios was born in New York City, a first generation Greek, who as an artist has always felt a strong affinity with the Greek sculptors, in particular those of the 6th and 5th centuries.
His early art training began at the High School of Art and Design in New York where he was influenced by Frank Eliscu. He continued his education at the Pratt Institute, the National Academy of Fine Art, where he studied with EvAngelos Frudakis and Granville Carter, and the Art Students League, studying anatomy and drawing with Robert Beverly Hale and painting with Robert Brackman.
A well-known sculptor, Antonios has exhibited in numerous shows throughout the country and is included in many important collections in the United States and abroad. CommissionsThroughout his career he has created many commissions, including three-dimensional and relief works. In 2008, Dreamer, an over life-size sculpture, was cast in bronze and installed at the Bearden-Josey Center for Breast Health, part of the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He also completed a second relief commission for a family in France, a seven-foot bronze door for a chapel. The first was a cinerary chest, also done in relief and cast in bronze. And he completed the 2009 medal for Brookgreen Gardens in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. His life-size figure, Mary Mother of the Church, is part of the chapel at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C. And his Christ on the cross, Christ the Listener, was created for the Society Unita/The Passionist Community of the Catholic Church in Ontario, Canada. He has completed commissioned portraits for the White Plains Memorial Hospital in White Plains, New York, and for the Merchant Marine Captains' Headquarters in Washington, D.C., among others. And he did a large scale, full seated figure of Erik Jonsson for the campus at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. He's done sculptural projects for the Interpublic Group of Companies and Honeywell Corporation in New York. And in 2006 he was a finalist for the Oneida Nation Monument for the Smithsonian-National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. His sculpture, Awakening, is in the permanent collection of Brookgreen Gardens in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. He was also named a Kenan Master Sculptor at Brookgreen in 2004. Antonios has taught sculpture and drawing for many years and currently teaches at the National Academy of Fine Art and the Art Students League in New York. He has also taught at Brookgreen, the Education Alliance in New York, the Lyme Academy of Art in Lyme, Connecticut, and the University of Hartford in Hartford, Connecticut. He's a Fellow of The National Sculpture Society.
Excerpt from an article, "On Relief,"by Richard V. WestRichard V. West is Director Emeritus of the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington, and currently a trustee of the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle
... A very different approach to the conception of relief sculpture is seen in the work of Anthony Antonios, who bases his art on a tradition of classical balance and serenity. His early interests were fostered at the High School of Art and Design in New York and furthered by study at the Pratt Institute, the National Academy, and the Art Students League. His admiration for the sculptors of the Greek "Golden Age" also led to an interest in Michelangelo and a pilgrimage to Italy to see the great sculptor's work in person.
Like most figurative sculptors, Antonios considers drawing and the study of anatomy fundamental to the understanding of the human form. In his reliefs, Antonios maintains the serene and calm sensibility of his freestanding works. Harvest, for example, uses the placement of trees in the foreground and background to set the stage on which three quiet figures interact. Each figure is shown arrested in movement at a moment when the body is in balance. By freezing the poses and carefully orchestrating the rhythm of arms and legs, Antonios turns the Arcadian subject into a monumental and stately dance of time. Another relief, Dance, suggests something very different. A cavorting Bacchic figure seems almost ready to burst out of the confines of the relief. Serenity is replaced by exultation and introspection by extroverted action. A series of reliefs, with evocative titles such as Family Gathering, Midsummer, Sisters, and Pastoral, combines figures, horses, and the occasional dog in sylvan settings. Full of detail and subtly arranged figures and objects, these reliefs are not overtly narrative. Nevertheless, they evoke a mysterious scenario through the averted, inward-looking faces of the figures, each in their own world of thoughts and feelings. A continuing thread through this series is the sense of harvest, almost autumnal, as the figures pluck fruit and flowers. Journal centers on a single figure in a more domestic setting, but the same veiled atmosphere of introversion pervades.
What is there about relief sculpture that attracts Antonios? He responds, |