Stephen Antonakos

Stephen Antonakos was largely working in collage in the 1960s, until he noticed Times Square’s lights at night: “I saw one thing that I loved very, very much right away,” he says, “the garish colors that we can get from neon tubes [of light].” That moment instigated what would become the hallmark aesthetic of Anatonakos’s long career, characterized by his creation of brightly colored light installations. Works like Arrival (2008) and Neon Table #1 (1986) have a kinship with the works of Dan Flavin, and the 1960s Light and Space movement of Southern California that included Larry Bell, Bruce Nauman, and Doug Wheeler. Antonakos also makes drawings, watercolors, and bas-relief moldings that demonstrate a similar affinity for minimal, abstract, geometric forms.