VASSOS KOUNTOURIDIS 1992
It had been a pleasure for me to follow closely the work of Nikoletta Antonopoulou in the field of the Fine Arts right from her early steps. Noticing her not only in the steady progress achieved by attending the aesthetic guests of true expressionism but also in the deployment of her subjects. It is in her guest to grasp and depict the motion. And where else could she find it alive, intense and dynamic? Beyond any doubt, in the races, in soccer, in motorcycles, in bicycles, etc. With robust strokes and free motions when she feels, she can depict the instantaneus grasp efficaciously. The harmony in colour and style denotes knowledge of design and adjustment of composition. Her expressionism is imbued with instructive and prudent impulse. It extends within the bounds of truestates because it can keep a balance between the spirit and the hand. And her spirit is free of pain, anguish, depression, agony. On the contrary you can perceive hilarity, power. It is aiming at a successful life. Victory is attained by means of a noble spirit of meulation and practice in the strife. Using these fundamental and innate weapons she will push herself creatively in the field of the Fine Arts.
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DORA ILIOPOULOU-ROGAN (1996)
Motion, colour, light: Τhe fundamental – from the beginning of her career consolidated – characteristics of the figurative writing of Nikoletta Antonopoulou are at her works orchestrated in the sailing boats and in Wind Surfers. The dynamic, evermoving, full of “flame” writing of the creator, writing that has impressed repeatedly through motion, “direction” and the in general bearing of the runners, the cyclists, the footballers, the motorcyclists, the riders, in brief the athletes, is characterized by a new climax to her sailing ships. Creative pretext for a genuine, spontaneous, instictive, vital creation, each boat appears self-reliantly and simultaneously inseparable member of a multidynamic composition. Presence above all “poetical”, each boat stands the visible core – transmitter and receiver – of an invisible but always existing cosmogony, that supports it and fixes it in colour, rhythm, motion. Vibratingly given through the exaltation – feast – of colour, the sailing boats, are materialized – projected – through the characteristic mirages of sea and sky. Eloquent elements – elements of a procedure that exceeds by far the happenings in this world. Phantasmagorical presences the boats here, in the departure or “in the course of fight”, submit coherences that exceeding by far the particular stimulus concern the same destiny.
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ATHINA SHINA (1999)
The significance of exercising, real and figurative, constituted the starting line of inspiration for the creation of the work of Nikoletta Antonopoulou. The expressionistic elements of the design, which impress the gestures of writing and figurative attribution of her each subject, are accompanied by the intensities of colour that they transmit action, motion, pulse and liveliness. The directness and the verisimilarity activate and intensify the activism of the figures, in these works, that are inspired by the whole manipulation of Nikoletta Antonopoulou, relatively to the atmosphere that cultivates to the spectator, submitting to him, through the sports eg. of riding, sailing etc. the permanent vigilance that life demands, as well as the permanent exercise of awareness that art demands.
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PEGGY KOUNENAKI (2003)
Basic characteristic of her work, her attempt to conceive the movement of the bodies of the athletes and the sentiments that are impressed to their faces the moment of the ultimate effort. Her compositions, that are determined by the awareness of space and design, the balance of organisation, succeed in attributing the atmosphere of the athletic spaces, the intensity of the athletic body, the expression of the face, the spirit of rivalry. Effects from impressionism, expressionism and american post-war art are realised in her painting work. What dominates in her works, which are usually presented in thematic units, is motion and action, that are impressed mainly to the bodies and the faces of the athletes that she portrays in her paintings. Elements that are attributed in expressionistic disposition, fast, free and dynamic stroke, plasticity and intense chromatic gradations.
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