The painting Theodore Antoniades for a small period of time, was the manager of the popular Art Galery of Rhodes, and durinh his 10 years career, he made more than ....pieces.
   The presentation of works is in two main units. In the first unit we have those works completed during the first years of his artistic career, consisting of the artist's studies and observations of his natural-environment, and in the second unit we have the work produced during the period he spent in the U.S.A. In these latter works we see how the artist uses his imagination to renew his portrayal of the worId around him.
     Upon his return to Rhodes, the artist Theodore Antoniades presented a one-man exhibi~tion of this series of works during the summer of 1986. Today, in what might be described as a retrospective exhibition, his fellow artists, his friends and his compatriots, and all those who visit the Gallery, will have the opportunity to reassess and once more evaluate his career and his contribution to the world of art. It is not my intention to analyse these works for their aesthetic virtues. These are to be found in Antoniades work and indeed give it its characteristic quality. Such an analysis is the task of art critics, whose texts are useful because they constitute, as Christopher Fints said, a separate branch of prose which has not yet been put to full use by today's artists.
     A defender of every genuine work of art, I find myself once more in this position with this presentation of Antoniadeslthrough his work, exactly as I knew him from the moment of his 'birth' as an artist. His work was indeed his life.In 1978 he decides once and for all to enter the world of art. He abandons his studies in Economics and literally throws himself into the study of art. As is only natural, light constitutes the focus of his observations. Very soon, through his art, he becomes aware of and is overwhelmed by the miracle of life itself. His development is impressive. Hard-working, methodical, he sets himself goals and parallel to the practical side of art, he studies theoretical texts which help him rapidly gain the knowledge every creative artist needs. Ever restless, Antoniades acquires a new awareness and realises, in his own rather solitary and self-effacing way, that he is able to make a greater contribution to the world of art. He decides to study in the U.S.A. He studies at the School of Fine Arts at the Museum of Boston Tufts University and Columbia University in New York. He gradually learns all about Contemporary art and methods of its production, which seem to be closely related to the idealsof our modern age.He receives a broad education and learns everything necessary for today's artist.
     In his work, he proposes his own, personal pictures, giving shape and form to his experiences, making decisive use of the wealth of his cultural heritage. He believes in traditions, and these traditions become the forms which determine the entire climate of his works. His cultural heritage is indeed rich as he lived and grew up in three countries. Cyprus, Greece and Zimbabwe.
     His personal experiences are intense; on the one hand, the Ancient world and on the other today's restless world, which both lead him to different artistic moods. He is deeply moved by colours, the colours which surround him.
     During these years, his instinct guides him in his quest for these. The transparent atmosphere of the light over the Aegean Sea, the azure sky, the deep blue of the sea, give him a feeling of balance.
     His life in Africa moves him in the same way, this time from a different viewpoint. At some point, he must have held in his hands an African good luck charm, painted with warm, bright colours. The thread of this symbolism can be followed through his works.
     In the U.S.A. he spent most of his time in New York, one of the great centres of contemporary art. Here, it is very easy for the artist to devote himself to the influences of the great artistic movements. Such choices, following along the lines of successful, established patterns, are within the capabilities of certain artists, and may be acceptable and sometimes interesting. However, even if the artist is to imitate these patterns~he must believe in what he is doing.
     For Antoniades,an artist with a philosophical way of thinking, exactly the opposite happens. He makes his starting point out of his own experiences. They are his sources, and he uses them for his proposals of shape and form. His inner emotions pour out into his works. They contain his secret thoughts, his ideas and reflections, the fantastic world of his imagination. The aim of his artistic vision is to present us with work which is authentic, conveying all the historical bakcground of the work itself.
     In his painting he first tries to find answers for himself. He looks inside himself, finds his true self and always comes back to his ideals. If we were to place his works side by side, in this wider context, they would provide us with a cinematic picture of the workings of his imagination. With poetic sensitivity they remind us of the leaves on the same branch of a tree, which exist together as part of the same branch and yet are all uniquely different.
     Antoniades manages to do away with the routine of conventional portrayal, decoding and interpreting, in his own intense way, the details of objects, which then become his proposal of form. It is in this way that the subject of his work comes into oeing, although he is aware of the fact that the subject and the various psychological moods of the artist, playa secondary role in art. His only psychological observation is to be found in the titles of his works, such as "Arabian Night", "Flying Garden", "Midnight Landing", "Nameless Bay", "After the Rain". These titles were Antoniades own clever way of showing the nostalgia he had for the things he loved in the countries he grew up in.
     Without any kind of pretence, he lived in the Garden of Eden of his imagination, a garden of his own creation. His works are part of him. His desire to learn about many things not necessarily directly connected with art, led him to a series of further studies, further widening his education with subjects, such as Gemology, Business Administration and Arts Administration.
     The works he left us during this decade,set us thinking about what he could have given us in the future. We lost him while he was still very young and his work was so suddenly interrupted, cut off in its prime. If we subscribe to the theory that as an artist matures, his work improves, he evolves and makes a contribution to the world of art, to himself, and to the world in general, we reach the conclusion that, without a doubt, Antoniadeswas a highly gifted artist and that certainly he would have played a major role in the general artistic movement of our time. I believe that his works, which so clearly bear his personal stamp, will offer themselves as proposals to be reappraised by those who will come after us.