Michael Michaeledes was an artist, architect and poet. He was born in Nicosia, Cyprus in July 1923 and was raised in Egypt and Greece. He studied Architecture and Fine Arts in Milan, Italy and Central Polytechnic, London. He settled permanently in London in 1955, where he worked as an artist and also as an architect.
His early paintings were figurative and representational landscapes made using washes of pigment on paper and canvas but became increasingly abstracted. By the late 1960s he started making three-dimensional shaped canvas reliefs, initially painted but eventually the use of colour and paint altogether was abandoned entirely in preference for wood and bare canvas. His works were typified by shaped and warped wooden frames with unprimed canvas stretched over them creating shallow reliefs that cast deliberate and geometric patterned forms and shadows. These works - often composed of a number of pieces - and their arrangement on the wall also have architectural elements of structure and design. Michaeledes himself said that the elimination of colour was rooted in inspiration from the stark marble reliefs of ancient Greece.
Michaeledes has been represented by Annely Juda Fine Art in London since 1963. His first solo exhibition was held in 1959 at Leicester Galleries, London and he has since exhibited in 40 solo exhibitions and over 80 group shows. In 1976 he represented Greece at the Venice Biennale and in 2012 the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation published a comprehensive book about his life's work. His art is held in museums, foundations and private collections around the world.