Dimitrios Galiatsatos was born in Argostoli in Kefalonia, the beautiful Ionian island which is so near Italy as to feel almost part of it. Within himself he carries the contradictions of his island, the harshness of a land of dunes, desert fields, and the fantastic, centuries old olive trees with mysterious sculpted trunks, but also the boundless breath of the sea and the two sides engage in a continuous dialogue.

Dimitrios was born in hard times, the disastrous 1953 earthquake left the population living in uncomfortable, squalid shanty towns. He was a solitary, shy child who rarely played with other children. His was a difficult childhood.

It was not easy for the Galiatsatos family to return to a normal, quiet life after those years. As he grew up the artist did several manual jobs, usually with indifference and no involvement. This was a reaction to a world which he felt to be alien to him. But finally he found his vocation and a means to express his most intimate and hidden thoughts through working on any material to hand, whether found objects or things of no value. “Nothing completely dies” he said to me one day, “All you need is to look at the object (thrown away and found), read and understand it, so that it is transformed into something more alive than it was before”. Dimitrios has demonstrated this in his work where objects become artistic expression and poetry of the soul.

A powerful force informs his work. “I believe in the immensity and depth of the mystery which surrounds and shapes us. I attempt to penetrate and give form to this through the consciousness of the sacred which is the moving force behind my work”.

Pina Sassano

Born in 1955 in Kefalonia (Greece).