Chronis Botsoglou was born in Thessaloniki in 1941. He was trained from an early age bySarafianos, who served as his tutor, before enrolling at the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA) from 1960 to 1965 on a scholarship, training in Yannis Moralis’ studio. In 1970, Botsoglou travelled to Paris to further his studies at the École Nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, thanks to a two-year scholarship.
His first exhibition, at the Athens’ Centre for Technological Applications (K.T.E. showroom), took place he was still a student, in 1964. His work of this time depicts everyday industrial objects (telephones, toilets, bookshelves) as symbols of the modern individual’s life and explores the sense of alienation that comes with it. Like many young artists, Botsoglou found confidence and purpose by associating with fellow upand-comers in various groups and units, such as ‘Art Group A’ (1960–1967), the ‘Visual Arts Centre’ (1974–1976), and the ‘Group for Communication and Education in Art’ (1976–1981). He also founded the ‘New Greek Realists’ movement (1971–1973) as he become more established. In 1989, he was elected as a professor at ASFA, where he also served as Chancellor from 2001 to2005, and taught until 2008.
After the 1960s, the focus of Botsoglou’s work switched more explicitly to the figure, the artist’s body and those of the people around him. As a timeless subject, the anthropomorphic figure is explored as a metaphor for the human condition, its skin the canvas recording the journey of life. Generally anthropocentric but also autobiographical, this reflection evolved, between 1993 and 2000, into a series entitled Nekya (in reference to the eleventh book of the Odyssey), in which Botsoglou explores his memories of significant people from his life who have passed away.
From the artist’s own account, his themes are dictated by the need to explore relations, explicit and implicit, in a quest for self-knowledge — a quest which he believes leads to more sombre considerations stemming from one’s consciousness of self: loneliness, fear and death.
Such rich artistic considerations have travelled through the years, in countless exhibitions including several retrospectives: the Municipal Art Gallery of Rhodes (1986), the Vafopouleio Centre in Thessaloniki (1991), the Cyclades Art Gallery in Ermoupoli, Syros (2008) and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens (2010). Botsoglou was the subject of a monograph in 2009. He has also published various books: Imerologia Taxidia (diary journeys) in 1994, Pseudodokimia (pseudo-essays) in 2000 and To Chroma tis Spoudis (the colour of study) in 2005, which included his writings on arts. In 1998, he published his poems in a collection entitled Spoudi sto Mavro (study on black).
