User:Mikepetrakis

Mike Petrakis aka Mike Panic, creator of VIVID POP, birth date 22 August 1975.

Mike Petrakis’s work reflects the continuing evolution of mass culture and its subversion at the hands of someone who refuses to accept what he is being spoon-fed on a daily basis.

His primary influences are Pop Art as well as Russian Avant-Garde and Abstract Expressionism with a dash of humour and vigour. He said: “Art, apart from making us want to think deeper and conveying a message, can simply cheer us up. I believe that art should appeal to as many people as possible and form part of the cultural discourse of a society.”

As a veteran of four solo and three group exhibitions in his native Greece, Mike is now keen to expand his horizons and bring his work to a wider audience. He is also one of four winners of a recent Dazed and Confused magazine competition entitled the ‘Make Art, Make Fun Of Art’ postcard competition. His winning entry, ‘Pop Corn’, will be featured in the April 2007 edition of the London magazine and in conjunction with the competition sponsors freedm2.com it will be made into posters and put on the streets of Brooklyn, New York and San Francisco as part of a FREEDM 'wild-posting' campaign. In addition, ‘Pop Corn’ and his installation ‘Since the Monitors’ were used in a prime time reality TV show as a comment on the contemporary preoccupation with image and vanity.

His works takes the familiar, such as a simple computer monitor or branded food and drink packaging and makes it unfamiliar in a way which can reveal hidden gems of humour and a different slant on life.