Leonidas Zouvelos, 23, shares eleven square meters in his studio on the Bahnwacht-Thiel site with two other artists. Despite the lack of space, he feels very comfortable here: “It was a stroke of luck to have such a space in Munich.” Leonidas is studying at the “Freie Kunststatt München” and will be moving to the “Hochschule für Graphics und Buchkunst” in Leipzig from the winter semester onwards.
Even the walls in the studio look like colorful works of art. “I’m a rather chaotic painter and sometimes test out brushes or paint on the wall next to the picture I’m currently painting,” he says and laughs. This used to cause trouble at home, but he can now live it out in his studio. He also enjoys the thought of leaving a mark in the space in which he works.
“People are the most exciting subjects for me,” says Leonidas. Almost all of the portraits he paints are of strangers he sees in public. Unnoticed by them, he sketches them or captures them with his camera in order to copy them later. This creates images that look like snapshots of authentic moments. Doesn’t he find it sad that the ignorant people portrayed never find out about the paintings? “I’m not the type of person who proudly presents the finished pictures to the models,” he says.
At an exhibition in Munich he noticed this young woman in a fur hat who was sitting a little apart from the rest of the people. “It piqued my interest and the light was perfect,” he says. Leonidas pulled out his camera, took a photo and later copied it. He will be exhibiting this and other of his pictures in the Icking town hall gallery from next week.
Cyan, a color between blue and green, also called turquoise, is Leonidas’ favorite color. “You can already see this color in my very first pictures, which I painted in kindergarten.” The color reminds him of the water in Greece, where one side of his family comes from. He also likes to use the color to create specific skin tones.
For his self-portraits, Leonidas uses a mirror to paint his face. “You can see your own self even better when painting in the mirror than in photographs,” he says. In general, he enjoys painting self-portraits to capture his own moods. What is striking is that neither the self-portraits nor the other faces in his pictures can be seen laughing. “I don’t like to paint advertising posters with people smiling broadly, but rather pictures that show the imperfect.”