A Visual Storyteller Inspired by Byzantine & Hellenistic Tradition
Maria Panou is a visual artist based in Athens with an international artistic presence.
She studied painting and iconography from a very young age, apprenticing with established teachers. She has a deep love for Hellenistic and Byzantine Art, seeing them as forms of expression with historical identity and narrative power, as she considers herself a visual storyteller. And she believes that intercultural exchanges broaden the boundaries of the world and enrich the human spirit. Therefore, she wishes and she hopes that people around the world will appreciate, study, and promote the artistic expressions of their cultural heritage, engaging in a creative dialogue with the present and with the surrounding cultures.
Since 2016, in collaboration with the renowned iconographer George Kordis and other Greek iconographers, she has participated in the iconographic decoration of more than twenty churches in Greece and abroad (the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia) as well as four chapels on the island of Agistri, her birthplace.
She has also painted murals at the Theological School of Athens, as well as restaurant decorations and private homes in Athens and other cities.
She has presented her original paintings in group and solo exhibitions in Greece and abroad, including the exhibition “ Saved by the Beauty “ dedicated to Dostoyevsky’s work, which traveled to the United States: Sheen Art Center, New York, Maliotis Cultural Center, Boston, Western American Diocese Alhambra, Los Angeles, and The Russian Center, San Francisco.
She also teaches Byzantine Art at the international online school “ Writing the Light”, as well as leading independent workshops on Hellenistic and Byzantine ART in Greece and abroad.