Peter Agrafiotis “Riverbank in Spring”

24 x 32 inches, acrylic on panel

Peter Agrafiotis was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, NH and he attended college in Massachusetts, but left to work in journalism in Maine, and to paint. From 1978 to l985 he owned, edited and published the highly-praised CLUE, “America’s Only Vacation Magazine That’s Sarcastic.” In 1986 he sold CLUE to devote himself full-time to painting. He also enjoys doing stonework on the grounds of the unusual self-built home and studios on the Maine coast where he lives with his wife, Janice, and their English Shepherd, Sunshine. He still writes humorous fiction. His satire of the art world, titled “This Is Not My Bathing Suit” received 25 five-star reviews on Amazon. Agrafiotis has been nominated four times for awards in painting at the American Academy of Arts and letters.

Artist’s Statement:
My love of nature leads me not to want to copy it (what would be the point of that?), but to present a semi-abstract, emotionally-charged colorist evocation of the natural world. By “colorist” I mean that subjects – trees or skies or water – can be any color that makes the image more dynamic and mysterious. Although I employ a narrow palette for each painting. And by “abstract” I mean that qualities like perspective and space are at times reduced and controlled to create a sense of a breathing image moving forward toward the viewer. My landscapes usually have very little land – that is, little or no ground plane, more often having a ground plane of water. And water is reflective, translucent and transparent, like the air above. Therefore, the entire image can have the same sensation of being light suffused. The effect then is not of “painting as window,” but of painting as a light and color emitting surface – something that glows and evokes natural light but allows for the imagination to project an altered reality of paint.