I am Tety Solou. I was born in Athens. Ι studied piano at the Greek Conservatory and law at the University of Thrace. I didn't become a musician nor followed the family tradition as a lawyer, because what I love the most is to design and illustrate books and create cartoons and comics. So I became a free lance illustrator. Very quickly I discovered how important the architecture of the book is and for quite a few years I was very happy being a free lance art director.
♥ Since 1988 I have illustrated more than 150 books, educational, fiction, etc. I was very fortunate to work with distinguished writers and established publishers. I made comic strips etc. for major newspapers and magazines and had a lot of fun creating brain puzzles, board games etc. for kids. I also wrote and illustrated over 40 books. The series of puzzle books "Styvokefalies" which I wrote and illustrated it's now in the 18th edition!
♥ In 2006 I started the publishing house "Portokali" (orange in Greek). "Portokali" published books for children.
♥ In 2006 I translated William Hope Hodgson's books "The House at the Borderland" and the yet unpublished "The files of detective Carnacki".
♥ In 2011 I wrote my first book for adults "Sweet Life", an album that depicts the everyday life at the Greek-Turkish boarder village of Soufli, just before the World War II. It was published in limited edition.
♥ In 2012 I wrote the book "Thessaloniki-Monuments, Graves and Memories", a historical study about the multilingual and multicultural history of Thessaloniki. Hopefully will be printed soon.
♥ 2013 was the year I created the cartoon character Izola, my alter ego. Izola signes cartoons, comics and fanzines for adults and participates in alternative publications, exhibitions and comic events.
♥ In 2014 I saw the succesful conclusion of my love affair with Lafcadio Hearn's books which I started translating in 2007. "Kotto", "Japanese Miscellany" and "Kwaidan" were published by the Kytherian World Heritage Fund. My fascination with Hearn has droven me into taking part in conventions, round table discussions and also my multimedia presentation of Hearn has been shown in several places during 2014 and 2015.
♥ In 2017 published my book "Vourla" about the state bothel of Vourla, where the whores lived as prisoners.
♥ From 2013 I create the posters for the Multilinguality Festival and Multilinguality Cafe.
♥ I have participated in many group exhibitions of comics, children's books illustration in Greece and abroad. I also had solo exhibitions of my artwork.
My recent exhibitions :
• "Izola Makes Art", Solo exhibition, Thessaloniki 2014
• Participation in Comicdom, in self publishing section
where I exhibited my cartoons and fanzines, Athens 2014.
• Solo exhibition at the Lions Club "Macedonia",
Thessaloniki 2014
• "Art for Amnesty", group exhibition, Thessaloniki 2015
• "Two years Izola", Solo exhibition, Athens 2015
• "Kytherian Landscapes", Solo exhibition, Kythera 2015
• "Comix-State", group exhibition, Athens 2017
• 2nd Applied Arts Festival, group exhibition, Athens 2017
Interviews :
(click on titles to view)
• On Ert (from 45 min)
•To the author Dimitris Magriplis at Tempo24
I am a member of the Greek Association of Tourism Journalists & Writers – FIJET and of the Greek IBBY.
About Tety Solou
