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 is what excites me and not the outcome. While clarity is important, I love the sense of power that comes from the unrefined nature of things.

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 her discovery of painting as a vehicle for cathartic personal expression.

At the age of eighteen, she went to live with relatives in 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 lived in America for the next 20 years, exhibiting work in the United States.  In 1997, she returned once again to Greece with her husband.  During that time, she had exhibitions in Athens, Greece and Nice, France.  Currently residing in South Carolina, where she has formed a non-profit organization, SEEWALL CHILD.  Their focus is art installations for Children’s Hospitals.