The painter, writer, director and stage-designer Apostolos Kilessopoulos is considered as one of the most important figures in the post-war contemporary Greek art scene. He studied architecture and stage and film direction in Darmstadt and Athens and has made a series of documentaries on cultural themes. He taught and directed film studies at the School of Theatre and Film Studies in Thessaloniki (1969-1976). He received honorary scholarships from the Italian government and the Fulbright Foundation.

He painted the two largest murals in Greece (1989) – outside the lecture amphitheatre of the Faculty of Architecture and Engineering and at the main registry building of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

He directed and designed the production of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro by the State Theatre of Northern Greece in the 1994 Demetria Festival. He lectures in Greece, USA and Holland. He publishes essays and studies in literary and art reviews. He has written two books: My Diotima (2003) and The unbearable Sundays of Painting (2009)and has illustrated editions of literary works, as it was his outstanding illustration of the poems of T.S. Eliot in their first complete edition in Greek. He presented a seminar on the subject ‘The Vicissitudes of the Arts in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’ at the Faculty of Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

He has taken part in group exhibitions since 1964 (Darmstadt Polytechnic 1964; Salon International de Mai, France, 1974; Contemporary Greek Art, 12th Demetria Festival, Thessaloniki, 1977; Experiment Verein, Stuttgart, 1984-85; Contemporary Greek Art, National Gallery, Athens, 1981; Thessalonian Artists, Boston, 1986, The Paratiritis Artists, Vafopoulio Cultural Centre, Thessaloniki, 1990; From Two Dimensions to Space, OMEPO-Macedonian Centre of Contemporary Art, Zappeion, Athens 1992; The Municipal Art Gallery’s Collection of Works by Thessalonian Artists, Nicosia, Month of Culture, 1995; Basic Links, Fulbright Foundation, Melina Merkouri Cultural Centre, Athens-Thessaloniki, 1998, etc.).

He has had thirty-seven one-man shows – seven of which were retrospective – in Greece, France, Germany and the USA (Galerie Mouffe, Paris, 1975; Galerie Experiment, Stuttgart, 1984; Alexandre Iolas Gallery, Psychiko, Athens, 1986; Pleiades Gallery, Athens, 1982, 1987; Galerie du Petit Pont, Strasbourg, 1987; Thessaloniki Port Authority Warehouse, 1991; Titanium Gallery, Athens, 1992; Eirmos Gallery, Thessaloniki, 1994; Museum of Architecture, Chicago, 1996; Old Archaeological Museum, Thessaloniki, 2000; Art Gallery of the Society for Macedonian Studies, 1988, 2005; Evgenidou Foundation, Athens, 2006-2007, Thessaloniki Cultural Centre of Piraeus Bank, 2008, Science Center and Technology Museum “Noesis”, Thessaloniki, 2009, etc.). In 2004-2005, as a guest artist on the Art and Science programme at the American Center for Physics in Maryland, he presented his cycle Variations for Strings on the Archetypal Theme, which is related to the theories of Chaos and Superstrings. His painting was presented at the International Conference on Psychoanalysis held in Belfast in 2006, under the title Creative Transformation. In 2008 he participated in the Peace exhibition at the International Olympic Truce Centre in Beijing, China.

Seven art editions have been published about his work, examples of which can be found in both public and private collections in Greece and abroad (the National Gallery and Evgenidou Foundation in Athens; the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Teloglion Foundation of Art, Art Gallery of the Society for Macedonian Studies, and Municipal Art Gallery in Thessaloniki; the Museum of Architecture in Chicago, the American Center for Physics in Maryland etc.).

Numerous programmes and articles have been devoted to his work on radio and television and in the press, while many studies have been written on his work by experts in various fields.