Yiannis Nomikos was born in Athens, Greece on August 19, 1949. At a very young age, he started drawing and painting. At 14, he attended a Workshop for Ceramics and learned how to make copies of famous ancient Greek vases. This stimulated his interest in the myths of the Greek Gods and Heroes. At the age of 18, he began independent production and was selling ceramic copies on the island of Hydra and eventually in the Ancient city of Olympia. Styles and themes of ancient Greek ceramics, with several adaptations, have repeatedly been elements in various artistic series that Nomikos has produced throughout his career.
In 1974, at the age of 24, Nomikos moved to New York City. There were three years of adjustment to life in America.
With friends' encouragement, he returned to Art in 1978 and entered the Art Student's League, NYC. There, he found techniques in painting that gave him powerful new skills. Key to this was his teacher, Jack Faragasso. He studied perspective, anatomy, easel painting, and sketching. Drawing became Yiannis' most precious companion. Throughout his life, he has traveled with a sketchbook and will draw people wherever he goes... on a daily basis.
After a few years of digesting this new knowledge, Yiannis decided to expand his art education. In 1982, he moved to Stockholm, Sweden, and began exhibiting and selling his work. The following year, he moved to Posio, Finland, and worked on clay compositions for The Pentik Workshop. In 1984, he decided to return to New York.
In New York, Yiannis returned to his skills learned from ancient Greek ceramics, but he began painting on various innovative surfaces: human skulls, traffic cones, ostrich eggs, etc. His subjects were ancient figures in very complex psychological compositions. These unique works were being sold throughout New York into private collections.
In 1984, Nomikos met Claudio Bruni Sakraischik, a famous Artist and Art Historian (Curator of the Catalogue Raisonne of Giorgio de Chirico). Sakraischik encouraged Yiannis to apply his skills to frescoes and murals and gave Nomikos his first commission to paint scenes in his home in Hammamet, Tunisia (Dar Saouari). This work was photographed and published in *Maisons de Hammamet* (by David Massey), and launched commissions from architects and decorators for several frescos in Athens (FRESH, the store of Stelios Parliaros) and private residences back in New York (including the home of Sakraischik on E 72nd St).
Returning to easel paintings, Nomikos began to focus his talent on paintings of individual orchids. He would study a particularly beautiful flower under magnification and transfer elemental bits of structure and color in combinations that brought forth a vivid presence in the flower that verged on Magic Realism. His first successful exhibition of these was curated by Sakraischik and titled, *White Orchids*.
Nomikos became an American citizen in 1990. Sakraischik continued to promote Nomikos until his sudden death in 1991.
After the death of Sakraischik, Nomikos met the Art collector Cary Linguist. Cary moved Yannis into a loft studio in Chelsea, NYC. Linguist offered Yannis the freedom to produce without limit. Nomikos continued to explore themes of Ancient Greek Gods and Myths in easel paintings (such as, Hercules at the Garden of Hesperides). Yannis also continued using other painting supports; especially traffic cones in the "Red Figure" style, creating contemporary NYC scenes in an ancient compositional design.
In 2001, Nomikos moved from New York back to Greece. He settled in Pangrati, near where he was born. He began a major series of Orchid paintings (which are in bloom throughout Europe in private collections). In Athens, he met the critic and Art historian, Athena Schina; who promoted him with exhibitions at the Eugenidion Foundation (2011) and a one-man show at the Art Zone 42 (2013). Yannis continues to exhibit in gallery shows in Athens, Thessaloniki, Crete, Cyprus, New York, Boston, and Germany.
Occasionally, Nomikos returns to New York for several months to reconnect with his artistic roots, but eventually returns to his native home of Athens.