STATEMENT AND BIOGRAPHY

Christos Pantieras is an Artist and an Educator. His large-scale installations, sculptures, and mixed media works explore themes of communication, intimacy, autobiography, and identity. His artwork reveals the untold stories associated with wanting to make connections with others. This exploration has included an extensive response to his own personal engagements and, more recently, an outward investigation of the collective experience. In his work, Pantieras uses analog processes to record and accumulate a human presence. In his artworks, online correspondence is amplified and monumentalized to capture the weight it carries beyond virtual space (e.g. email, text messages, gay hook-up apps). In more recent work, he explores the historical events of the LGBT Purge.

In 2015 he received an MFA from York University (Toronto, ON ). Pantieras has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at venues such as the Ottawa Art Gallery (Ottawa), the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (Toronto), Modern Fuel ARC (Kingston), AXENEO (Gatineau), Artcite Inc (Windsor), and Circa Art-Actuel (Montreal). His work is represented in the collection of the City of Ottawa, The Ottawa Art Gallery, the Diefenbunker: Canada's Cold War Museum, and in several private collections. He has received professional grants from the Canada Council of the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa.

In 2019 and 2023 he was a Finalist for the Ottawa Arts Council Mid-Career Award. In 2022 he was the Artist-in-Residence for the Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum, and a Finalist for the inaugural ArtComp in London, ON (Top 10 Jury; Top 10 Public Vote). He sits on the Board of Directors for Studio Space Ottawa and the Ottawa School of Art.

Photo Credit: Rémi Thériault

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Christos Pantieras gratefully acknowledges the funding support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa.