It is an uncommon life adventure which the artist Sandy Kopitopoulos has traversed. He was born of a Greek father in Lausanne in 1965, finished his studies, and then, enthralled by the plastic arts, went to London to study life drawing. Subsequently, he was attracted to film. During this period, his mother was reunited with her own mother whom she thought lost during WWII. This grandmother to him was living in Los Angeles where she worked as one of the premier film music editors in the business. She welcomed her grandson to this city where he was admitted to the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), founded by Walt Disney. There Sandy made short films: his film Chairs was selected by an animation festival and toured American screens. With his certificate from CalArts in hand, he then worked for various film animation studios. In 1994, he returned to Switzerland, but maintained his working relationship with American animation studios.

Subsequently, he became familiar with a sophisticated software program developed by a small Californian company: Fractal Pinter. An animation director was the one who recommended the program to Sandy for his film work. At first it came as a sort of culture shock, but after a few months he mastered this new medium. Sandy Kopitopoulos had entered into this new field of plastic arts which is known as computart. It was not photography, nor was it painting, but rather an autonomous creation. "I created on paper images destined for the screen, " remarks Sandy. "Now I compose on the screen images which end up on paper."

The creations by computer which one generally sees appear to issue from computer programming doodling. In this case, however, rare would be the visitor to the gallery exhibit who would be capable of immediately identifying the technique employed, unless previously informed by Mr. Kopitopoulos. His work is definitely that of a painter in solid possession of his craft, which he has not abandoned in switching to the virtual image. He confesses to no longer distinguishing between screen and canvas, virtual pencil and paintbrush. What counts is the idea and the eye.

Nevertheless, he is fascinated and inspired by the infinite possibilities of the software program, which permits the rear illumination of the artwork according to a selected angle, or the choice of different textures. He can also create an object - a chair, for example, a topic which reoccurs frequently in his artwork - and subject it to different treatments and mutations at the whim of an imagination which would not be able to express itself, according to him, before a canvas. He feels himself liberated from this eternal struggle with the canvas in which sometimes it is the canvas which prevails.

What is striking about these medium and large reproductions, is the precision of the prints, thanks to a passionate printer who takes the time to emulate that which appears on the screen: exact colors, lighting, reflections, and watered silks, which are sometimes quite complex.

The wide public appeal of this new artistic approach was evident at the gallery opening. Beyond the discovery of a modern technique, visitors encounter an artist creating beautiful images, a certain number of whose titles express a profound interest in Greek mythology - Minotaurs, Theseus, Pythia, Narcissus, Helen of Troy, Pandora. An art, after all, which is not devoid of humor, as seen in the chairs - conversation conveniences mischievously furnishing several of these compositions.