JOHN "YANNI" FOTIADIS

John "Yanni" Fotiadis is a visual artist and licensed architect in the United States. He studied architecture at Temple University and Columbia University, where he earned his Master's degree.
In his 30-year architectural career, Yanni has designed projects for clients in Doha, Seoul, Dhaka, San Francisco, Cairo, Moscow, Panama, Kyiv, Tbilisi, Athens, Dubai, and Istanbul. He says, "I've been fortunate that my work as an architect has given me a unique education afforded only through travel. As Socrates, my intellectual hero, said via Plutarch, '1 am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world'".
Yanni started drawing and developed a love of visual art from an early age. As an architect, he used his formidable drawing skills as a design tool, in essence as a means to an end. As a visual artist, he sees drawing as an end in itself. His artwork has explored various themes and techniques but has always been primarily inspired by the imagery of his early childhood summers in Greece.
Recently, Yanni's trips to Greece have focused on an immersion in classical antiquity. What has resulted is his ongoing drawing series started in 2019, called "The Solace of Antiquity." The drawings, done in graphite, colored pencil and charcoal, document the ruins of ancient sites, and explore the effects of the luminous Aegean light on the architectural remnants there. Equally informed by the philosophical schools of antiquity and traditional academic drawing techniques rooted in optical theory, Yanni's drawings reveal the unique and visceral metaphysical character of these ancient places that transcend space and time.
Yanni was recently given a one man exhibit at the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago in the summer of
2023. The exhibit titled "Beyond Antiquity" was comprised of over 40 drawings and digital pieces created between 2019 and 2023. His first solo art exhibit, "Metaphysical Greece," was held at The College of Southern Nevada, Dept of Fine Arts, in the fall of 2022. His work was also exhibited at The Hellenic American Project at Queens College, City University of New York in 2021.
In addition to being an architect and visual artist, Yanni is an accomplished musician who writes music and performs. He has also dabbled in film and comedy and has an intense interest in the history and philosophy of classical antiquity. Given all his interests, he is known as a Renaissance man.
In addition to his visual art, Yanni provides design consulting services. He recently taught a series of Architectural Design studios as an adjunct professor at the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He has also taught architectural history and drawing classes at the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, New Jersey.