Self portrait , 1993

Botsoglou studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts and continued his apprenticeship at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. Under influences from the work of his teacher Yannis Moralis, as well as of other great artists such as Yannoulis Halepas or Alberto Giacometti, he advanced to a form of painting which was purely anthopocentric; this in the course of events arrived at the point of being almost exclusively autobiographical. In a constant dialogue with himself and those closest to him, Botsoglou's painting evolved from his first, realistic, works, of the late 1960s, of a purely socio-political character, to his anguished endeavours in an inner quest and the redefinition of the nude (male or female) of his later years. 'Images of the body', in an undertaking of self-knowledge, in the case of his own self, or of communication and acceptance, in the case of his model, are transposed on to the canvas with the required respect, as the tension and the passion never break up the unity of the image.