George Ioannou, Artist and the Artworks

George Ioannou - Artist was born in Croydon, South London in 1974. His early inspiration came from the comic book heroes of the 1950s and 1960s, and having gained his art A-Level, his early ambition was to be a cartoonist.

For a time though, he found himself working in estate agency, though he never lost his passion for art, and was always more drawn to the interior aesthetic rather than the bricks and mortar of the properties he worked with.

To answer his desire to be involved in a more creative profession, Ioannou studied television and film, which in turn brought him back to the screen icons who had influenced his life, whose craft he admired, such as Al Pacino. He then began to take on numerous acting roles, both on the big screen, including Die Another Day, and on television, in The Bill.

Ultimately, it was buying his own house that brought Ioannou back to creating art. Faced with bare walls, he visited art galleries, but couldn’t find anything that truly inspired him. So he painted his first canvas, of Al Pacino in Scarface; and as he says: “the house loved it…!”.

Eventually, with the encouragement of everyone who saw and loved Al Pacino, Ioannou was persuaded to paint a series of work for publication.

For his first series of ‘icon’ images, Ioannou has drawn, by choice, on the films and film stars that inspired him personally the most. He works in acrylic on canvas, taking many hours to draw the initial image by hand, determining the balance of form and shading needed to capture the mood of the piece. He then chooses and mixes his colours to further enhance the vibrancy and emotion of the image, before finally applying paint to canvas.

While George Ioannou’s work may be referenced to that of the great 1960s artist Andy Warhol and the whole ‘pop-art’ genre, he reintroduces us to this style in a new Millennium with his own unique palette.