Nikolaos Tsiotras
The iconographer Nikolaos Tsiotras was born in 1959 in the city of Larissa. From a young age, he expresses his interest in the Byzantine art of iconography, in which he was trained in Mount Athos. His teacher has been the monk Chrysanthos Kareotis, a renowned iconographer of the Athonias School, affiliated to the Pachomian monk iconographers. He later continues his studies at the Arts Workshop of the Municipal Gallery of Larissa.
Nikolaos decides to communicate his skills to the eager and artistic people of Larissa, by founding the Byzantine Iconography School “Perigraptos,” teaching with his wife and their distinguished associates Barbara and Eleftheria Gkeka. Works of Nikolaos Tsiotras are found in Temples and private collections in Greece and other countries.
Marianna Vasileiadou
Marianna Vasileiadou was born in Russia in 1978, from Greek parents. Her childhood memories lead her to study paintings of famous artists, going back from the Renaissance, until the early 1900s. She distinguishes Renoir-one of the top impressionists- and she is inspired by his love for beauty, especially feminine beauty. She realizes whatsoever, that iconography is the subject that gives her true inspiration, and this is the reason she gives up Medical School.
By her twenties, she is already a skilled iconographer, guided by the nuns of the Panachrantos Monastery, in Megara, Attiki. She later attends the public school of Iconography in Larissa, Greece. The History of Art she was taught there, was crucial to her final immersion into Arts. She met Nikolaos Tsiotras in 1999, and their common artistic path is characterized by uniqueness and originality.