Nas Karas' photostream  

1980-1984

Thanassi Karageorgiou was born in Kozani, Greece in 1980. His father, Dimitri was an Architect and his mother Maria was studying to become one. His parents separated when he was just 11 months old. He lived with his father, throughout Europe for a few years until they both came to America in 1984. After a brief stay in Toronto, Canada, they settled in Astoria, New York. Thanassi’s father began to instill creative seeds by exposing him to drawing and painting at an early age. He would also place a small radio under Thanassi’s pillow at night, to lull him to sleep with classical music. Thanassi was enrolled in public school and quickly learned English. As early as kindergarten, Thanassi began to develop an appreciation for arts and crafts. Playing with wood blocks was one of his favorite activities, as was finger painting and anything that involved Elmer’s Glue.

1984-1992

Throughout his days elementary school P.S. 122, Thanassi began to make illustrations of primarily super heros and menacing spaceships. Some of his early influences came from classic 1980′s Science Fiction and Fantasy films such as Explorers, Aliens and Back to the Future. His classmates liked his work and would sometimes make special requests. Thanassi was happy to oblige. On weekends, his father would take him into Manhattan on the subways. Thanassi was always mesmerized by all the graffiti that blanketed the trains at that time.

1992-1994

Thanassi attended Junior High School 141 where he continued his love of drawing. He excelled at still life drawing in Art class and also participated in a Drama course where he was first intimately exposed to performance art. Outside the classroom, a more risqué passion was also beginning to develop. Although the early 1990′s brought the expulsion of graffiti from Subway cars, the craft was still alive and well in New York City. Thanassi had rediscovered graffiti as a fully fledged sub-culture that had charmed many young teens at the time. He and his friends mostly practiced the art in sketchbooks, but they would occasionally take to the streets. This was before the age of widespread internet adoption, when kids still got into good old-fashioned mischief. Thanassi and his small “crew” of friends would sneak off on cold winter evenings after school to write their “tags” on unsuspecting vertical surfaces with brightly colored spray paint. It was exhilarating until they got caught and into trouble with their parents. The sketchbook work persisted, but was kept secretive.

1994-1998

Brooklyn Technical High School exposed Thanassi to a rigorous education that would prepare him for college and beyond. He elected Architecture as his major study in High School. The first half of the program consisted of courses in mechanical drafting and orthographic projection complemented by a mathematics intensive statics course. Later, students were engaged in a design process as well as hands on model making. Thanassi also frequently produced artwork for the creative school magazine “Horizons”. In the summer before his senior year, Thanassi attended a fine art pre-college preparatory program at The Cooper Union in New York City. Advanced concepts in methodology and composition were studied in 2 and 3 dimensional media.

1998-2007

Thanassi studied undergraduate Architecture at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute. He also played NCAA Men’s Basketball for the first three years at Pratt. Thanassi found the studies in Architecture to be extremely stimulating. Pratt had acquired some of the brightest and progressive faculty of any Architecture school. During this time, Thanassi also studied digital image manipulation and film photography.

2007-2010

While pursuing a career path in Architecture, Thanassi frequently worked as a freelance event and portrait photographer and graphic designer. He has since reinvigorated his passion for this realm and currently works full time from his studio in Astoria, Queens.