Daniela Stamatiadi: Greece ⋆ Illustrator

Daniela Stamatiadi was born in 1972 in Athens, Greece. She studied her craft at the Athens School of Fine Art. Stamatiadi has been a children's book illustrator for over a decade, and has successfully been the illustrator of over seventy publications. She has published books with all major presses in Greece, and she teaches illustration at various private colleges in Greece. Stamatiadi has been the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the 2010 Greek IBBY illustration award for her book Von Kourabies versus Count Melomakoronis.

Stamatiadi's illustrations are fi tting for a wide variety of subjects. She illustrates many stories; the subject matter could be children who don't like their fi sh dinners, or it could be a nature poem. Stamatiadi's style as an illustrator defies neat definitions, and this is why she is able to suit her work to so many books. She is by all accounts an incredibly versatile artist. Her style ranges from being almost photographic in some books to deliberately stripped down, strikingly primitive, in other books. Her more elaborate and realistic paintings come through as portraits. In these, Stamatiadi uses a variety of colours and shadings to achieve a vibrancy and warmth that is innocent and inviting to the reader. A wonderful example of this style in action is The Promise (written by Anna Conomos). In other illustrations, Stamatiadi's minimalism takes over. She is a master of minimal colour and powerful but spare detail. In these illustrations she uses a sketch-like approach; oftentimes, most of the illustrations look like mere pencil sketches. This sketch is then set off by a distinctive and pronounced detail (made pronounced by its singularity). For example, a pencilled wolf might have a red tongue, or a black and white sketched child could have a red dimple. Besides being a very effective method of illustration in that it is distinctive, this minimalism is also quite refined, and it sets Stamatiadi apart as a children's book illustrator whose work has great value as art for adults as well. As the popular Greek children's author, Maria Angelidou, has noted, Stamatiadi's work has value "for all those who rejoice to hear and see beauty."