INTERVIEW

We could start with a short bio...
"We could go on, as well...I don't like people who move around boasting about their career, naming the many exhibitions they have participated etc...Most of the times, you see their work afterwards and there's no much happening..."

I agree. You're talking about people who through art seek social recognition and useful connections. But there's another group -and on my opinion you belong in that group- of artists for whom the creative procedure is the main thing. I know that in the past you 've been occupied with painting, photography, creative constructions...
"There is a long distance between occupation and creation. When I feel the passion for something I try touch a certain point of aesthetic completeness. If I have the time and the energy required, of course. That's all".

There are many artists working on motorcycle modeling. How did it come on you ?
"It started as a play, it is still a play and by the time it will stop being a play it will stop developing, and I will not be interested in it at all. I started watching all those industrial forms at spare parts shops and the used bikes lots, studying forms and shapes, the way a musician studies sounds. I started putting parts together to see what will come out. On the long run it proved a rather difficult task, since it usually occupies a lot of time. A bike takes me two months to complete".

You prefer to recreate your models in a perfect or an abstract way ?
"There is always a limit in my mind. Sometimes I think that overstepping that limit can get me positive results. Other times I prefer to stay below that. It depends".

Is there some kind of "secret" in the whole procedure ?
"I don't believe in secrets. I f you stick on something, you always come out with a solution. There are no secrets in the Internet Age. I use electric winding and argon for the soldering of the metal. The form of a motorcycle includes the circle, the square, the triangle, basic shapes which function with an archetypal way in the human soul".

Looking at a motor, one sees that each part is placed in a certain position, depending on its mechanical purpose. Some people cane also see an aesthetic suggestion in the arrangement and the form of these parts. Does it happen in your case ?
"I try to create visual associations that reflect memories of an industrial past. Things we see every day and we wish them to be different, but they are not"

Which is the relation with the models you create after you sell them ? Do you think of them ?
"I keep always the models I make in my head"

The people who buy them are bikers ?
"Not necessarily. Some of them are, but there are also people who have never ride on a bike. This tells me that those objects extract from them characteristics that maybe they had never thought."

You are owner of a bike. Do you think that the feeling of freedom you get riding on a motorbike, resembles that during the creating procedure ?
"When talking about motorcycle, it always comes down to freedom. But it's not only that. Motorcycle has a wider influence on your life. You feel free and thus you acquire a sense of dignity, which you also acquire by creating something, a sculpture for instance. These two are authentic situations of soul, freedom and creation. Motorcycle is also a mean to escape from the stifling pressure of the city's everyday life. And, most of all, it is a symbol of fast, autonomous movement. If, in some point in the future, the traffic were aerial and the vehicles were exclusively flying, those who today ride motorcycles would be driving fast ultra light planes. I guess they are the same kind of people that in the past were riding horses instead of using carriages".

The material for you is just a mean to express your ideas or there are cases that it leafs to the form ? I know you use many materials.
"In the general context of my relationship with art I work with many materials. I use iron, bronze, aluminum. It is a continuous exploration, a non-stop quest. You search for the mean that will get you faster to your destination. There are lucky people who find early in their lives an ideal mean for their creativity, in harmony with their souls and they develop their relationship with the particular material. For some people it takes more effort and time to discover "their material". I would call them lucky, as well. Through sculpture I seek and find inner peace. It is more play than work.
There are liberating materials, as well as enslaving ones. But even the latter can offer you unique possibilities. For instance, plasticine can be handled easily and lightly, while iron - the material of which my motorcycles are made of- is a difficult material. It gives you more time to think, so you have to come through long-lasting, definite solutions. The choice of materials is in close relation with the collective soul of each people. In Iceland, for instance, the sculptors prefer hard materials such as cast-iron. In Greece, we keep a more playful eye on things. There are artists working on clay with exceptional results."

As a sculptor, which one would you consider as well designed motorcycle ?
"Ducatti 996. It is a great motorcycle. But I'm not sure I find it more fascinating than an Indian".

Do you find the shape of an Indian inspiring ?
"Indeed. It offers a strange kind of comfort, which a dirt tracker will never enjoy. Your feet are just a few inches off the road, you have this sliding feeling..."

How do you imagine the motorcycle of the future ?
"Aerodynamics will play a more important role in its design- something that has already started to happen. It will give to the motorcycle a shape very similar to that of a drop in free fall- the perfect aerodynamic shape. All the more it becomes a matter of aesthetic approach, not of physics. This leaves very little room to aesthetics".

What is the influence of the Internet to an artist ? Do you believe that the screen is a good medium for the propagation of art ? Is it good for the eye of the people ?
"It depends. Through the Internet you can discover artists which you would have never heard of otherwise, something that I find really positive, but you can also stick around searching for hot sites, which I find pathetic. Through time and with the appropriate legislation, maybe a market will close down and a new one will arise. Only time will Show...."

Which are your plans for the future ?
"At the time being I am working on the construction of patterns which will allow me the reproduction of the models in aluminum and bronze. Thus I will be able to sell them to better prices, because they are rather expensive, it is true. I also intend to design and create handy objects such as pencil-cases, candlesticks and lamps. Lately I've been working on human forms, in a unity called "tiny heroes". They are the heroes of everyday life".