Cover Artist: Dmitry Spiros

Dmitry Spiros was born in 1971 in Tashkent, a contemporary impressionist artist. 

Dmitry was raised in a family with Greek roots. His grandparents spoke Greek, Turkish and Russian. After the historical events in Soviet Russia in 1917, part of the family was forced to leave Russia and emigrate to Greece, while the other part of the family, under fear of repression and deportation, remained living on the territory of Soviet Russia preserving their culture, traditions and language..  

Dmitry spent his childhood in Tashkent, a city in Central Asia.  He did not demonstrate success in school and did not excel in many subjects, but the talented young man was given drawing lessons especially well.  

“I was not born with a brush in my hands and I did not paint much as a child, as many artists say about themselves, probably trying to add fame to themselves,” but since childhood I have been fascinated by paintings by famous artists and showed interest in world masterpieces. Often looking at reproductions of paintings in magazines, I tried to see how they (the artists) did it. “I could stand in front of a painting in a museum for hours and just study and analyze the Impressionists, and in my free time, inspired by the canvases, I began to try my talent” – from Dmitry’s childhood memories. 

In 1993, After serving in the army, Dmitry entered the higher art school, -“I was in workshops for painting, ceramics, sculpture from morning to evening and just greedily absorbed all the art around,” says Dmitry. In the early years of his studies, the aspiring artist holds his first solo exhibition at the college. 

Dmitry was 23 years old when he began his painting studies and he was older than his peers. It was difficult at that time, I had to study and also work in the evenings. I needed money to live and to buy materials for painting. “I didn’t even dream of a real factory canvas, I couldn’t afford it.” I took a bag, primed it and created the first student canvases on it.” At the same time, during these years Dmitry worked as a teacher of painting for children, as well as a designer at the world-famous British-American tobacco company BAT. -” I did some small design work for the company, and also painted the company’s logo on the fences of the factory. I was especially proud of my black shoes, which they gave me. they were very strong, on which, for example, a brick could fall and not harm the foot. I wore them with dignity for 8 years,” says the artist. 

Later, for his academic success, Dmitry became a laureate of the P.P. Benkov scholarship and received the opportunity to receive a double scholarship. During the years of study, I also had to decorate the houses of rich citizens, gaining experience in monumental painting, decorating city holidays, and had the first orders for portraits.

Due to political events after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was forced to leave Uzbekistan for Russia. 

The creative path.

Since the late 90s, Dmitry Spiropulo (the artist’s real surname) has been changing his Greek surname, difficult to perceive and pronounce, to the pseudonym Spiros. Paintings painted in the early years of life in Russia sold poorly, often the proceeds from the paintings sold were only enough to buy new canvases and paints. During this period, many works were painted mainly under the influence of the French school of painting by such masters as Degas, Sisley, Monet, as well as masters of Russian impressionism of the IXX-XX century. 

Moving away from the brush and using the palette knife more, he tries to find his own pictorial language based on the perception of the world around him. Impasto brush strokes that are applied without layering, creating a mosaic or stained-glass appearance to the paintings, Dmitry seems to be sculpting shapes, building his creative idea. Using a palette knife, Dmitry is looking for his handwriting, his technique, this makes it possible to make painting voluminous and multi-layered. Since 2000, Dmitry has worked as a designer for several years. This significantly helped the family budget, because Dmitry had a daughter. A talented designer succeeded in his profession, he began to have money. During his ten-year career, Spiros managed to provide his family with a comfortable apartment in Samara. 

In 2011, Dmitry’s creative torments did not allow him to stay in Russia. In search of inspiration and a break from the past and a more exotic place to live, the artist moves to the tropical part of Mexico. “It was like Gauguin, only 100 years later, I found myself on a wild island in the tropics with paints and canvases in a small bungalow, where I spent hours painting nature and the sea.” – says Dmitry. 

Here, a family settles in a bungalow on the wild coast of the Caribbean Sea and faces the first difficulties. Small children and unbearable heat at night, humidity, lots of mosquitoes and scorpions, Tropical downpours. “Sometimes, after a storm and heavy rains, I found my new paintings floating on the floor surface” – this was not an easy test. Almost constantly without electricity and difficulties in finding food forced Dmitry to move to the city. But the beauty of the Caribbean Sea and the nature of Mexico cannot help but fall in love with themselves.  

Since 2015, Spiros has been actively cooperating with galleries in France, the USA, Holland, and Germany. The themes of the paintings are mainly urban landscapes, genre painting, the sea, flowers and portraits. Dmitry Spiros creates his canvases mainly using a palette knife, oil paints and acrylic. A large number of paintings are in private collections in more than 20 countries around the world.

You can find more of his work at: www.dmitryspirosart.com