Georgia Kotretsos
Visual Arts and Art HistoryBA, Durban Institute of Technology; MFA, School of Art Institute of Chicago
Georgia Kotretsos (www.georgiakotretsos.com) is a visual artist and researcher based in Athens, Greece. She holds an MFA Degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she studied on a Full Merit Scholarship (2004) and a BFA Degree from the Durban Institute of Technology, in KwaZulu Natal, (2000) in South Africa. In her work, Georgia primarily focuses and critiques the conformity of seeing and perceiving artworks in relation to their surroundings. By studying liberating and anarchic approaches of art viewing – she has created an interdisciplinary body of work in an effort to support that seeing is site-specific, and audience members are thus accountable for their art knowledge. Her practice is research based and – whether manifested as artwork, text or interview – it always encourages speculative approaches to how knowledge is produced by resisting the traditional and historical etiquette of its acquisition. She has exhibited her work in group exhibitions in Greece as well as abroad and has had five solo shows.
Parallel to her studio practice, Kotretsos co-founded Boots Contemporary Art Space, St. Louis MO, USA (http://bootsart.com) (2006-10) where she had the opportunity to work with many emerging as well established professionals. She has also founded Boot Print (http://bootscontemporaryartspace.org/blog/bootprint), a publication dedicated to contemporary art, which was published by Boots, where she served as the editor-in-chief.
Kotretsos currently is a columnist for the PBS Arts feature Art: 21 in New York, where she has a monthly column entitled “Inside the Artist’s Studio”: http://blog.art21.org/author/georgia-kotretsos/ and the Creative Director of Action Field Kodra (www.actionfieldkodra.gr/).