Bio

Petrides’ work in public sculpture creates bridges between history and contemporary public life, contributing to the humanities through visual storytelling and engaging viewers of all ages: families, students, tourists. Specializing in public sculpture, Petrides has created over 19 works permanently installed across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Many are monumental in scale—over six feet tall. All are sited in institutional settings, where they are viewed by tens of thousands of people daily. His commissions include sculptures for governmental, educational, and healthcare institutions, as well as corporations such as Tiffany & Co. which displays his works as part of their art collection in multiple stores around the world, including the New York flagship store.

He has developed a strong reputation globally due to his traveling public sculpture exhibition, Hellenic Heads, consisting of six over-life-size sculptural portraits inspired by key moments in Greek history. It is traveling to 10 venues around the world over a 5-year period. Drawing from primary-source research and family memories, this work explores themes of resilience, transformation and identity across 2,500 years. Now at their seventh venue, the Heads are on view in an outdoor courtyard in Istanbul.

Petrides’ artistic foundation is in his childhood in Athens, Greece, where he was immersed in the aesthetic and philosophical traditions of classical antiquity. (He became a US citizen in 1991.) His influences range from ancient Greek and Roman sculpture to Renaissance and modern masters such as Donatello, Michelangelo, Rodin, and Maillol. His studio practice fuses traditional sculpting methods with contemporary tools, including digital sculpting, industrial-scale 3D printing and recycled materials.

Petrides holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College (1985), where he studied Classics. He later earned two master’s degrees from Stanford University (1993). He spent the first part of his professional life on Wall Street, rising to Managing Director in the Mergers and Acquisitions Group at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette before founding his own advisory firm. While on Wall Street, he began his art training during evenings and weekends, attending the New York Studio School part-time for 22 years, as well as other globally recognized institutions. After over two decades of part-time study and art-making, he committed fully to his second career in 2017.