John Asimacopoulos

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John Asimacopoulos

Aged 27

Academy Of Realist Art Boston

Instructor(s): Cindy MacMillan, Emanuela De Musis, Garrett Vitanza, Julie Beck, Eric Johnson

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  • Artworks

Diana

Oil paint on canvas

34 x 17 ins (86.36 x 43.18 cms)

Akroasis (Work in progress)

Oil paint on canvas

32 x 19 ins (81.28 x 48.26 cms)

Arm cast painting

Oil paint on canvas

40 x 13 1/2 ins (101.6 x 34.29 cms)

Grisaille figure painting

Oil paint on canvas

26 x 11 ins (66.04 x 27.94 cms)

Limited palette painting

Oil paint on canvas

26 x 20 ins (66.04 x 50.8 cms)

Self portrait at 26

Graphite on toned paper

13 x 10 ins (33.02 x 25.4 cms)

Figure drawing

Charcoal on Roma paper

21 x 14 ins (53.34 x 35.56 cms)

Figure drawing

Charcoal on Roma paper

24 x 14 ins (60.96 x 35.56 cms)

Figure drawing

Charcoal on Roma paper

25 x 19 ins (63.5 x 48.26 cms)

Figure drawing

Charcoal on Roma paper

20 x 10 ins (50.8 x 25.4 cms)

My current objective is to finish the course at ARA Boston and acquire as much technical knowledge as possible, hopefully completing the program by summer 2020. Receiving a scholarship would help me finish the final stretch of my school’s program, uninterrupted, and really hone my painting skills.

In regards to my long term goals, the question that troubles me the most is how do I help people with my art? It’s not something you hear people talk about. I feel like it's more easily answered as a surgeon for instance. An artist can be great technically, but go their whole life without producing work that is worthwhile. I do not intend that to happen to me. I want to create something that impacts people, and reminds them of their humanity, and their capacity as humans, whether that be our ability to self observe, improve ourselves, appreciating nature, or just the capacity to experience a wide range of emotions. I would like my paintings to be there for when people need them.

Finally, having the skill of painting and drawing also means sharing the skill with others in the form of teaching. I know too well how hard it was for me to find education like this, and how hard it still is for people to find, so I feel I have a duty to teach. That being said, I genuinely love teaching, and seeing the progress of my students.

I always wanted to be an artist, and had always drawn as a child and teenager, but there were multiple reasons why I never pursued it. Firstly, I wasn't aware that classical art education existed. On top of that, I come from a family of physicians, which not surprisingly led to certain career expectations. As a result, I obtained a bachelor's in Biomedical Sciences from King’s College London, and a master’s in Global Health and Development from University College London. While I learned a lot, and developed as a person, it felt wrong to not be doing art. The turning point was finding the Art Renewal Center, and discovering the art education I had always been looking for. I gave up a place at one of the top dental schools in the United Kingdom to come to Boston, and study at the Academy of Realist Art full time, starting in September 2015. I am currently in my fourth year, and in the last stretch of the program, working on my first still life painting assignment and my extended dry brush in the figure room. Out of school, I have started doing more personal work which at the moment includes still lifes and landscape paintings, but hopefully extend this to more figure pieces soon. As of September 2018, I have been teaching both a figure construct class, which rehearses the beginning stages of a drawing, and ab anatomy class for figure students. During my undergraduate degree I did a year of anatomy dissection and clinical anatomy, so supplementing that knowledge with artistic anatomy gave me the ability to create a class geared towards figure students.