This workshop is an invitation to step beyond the analytical mind and into the natural, fluid intelligence of creativity, an invitation to stop analysing the image and instead synthesize the energy.

Over six days, Yanis will guide you through a process that opens, softens and frees the creative flow. We explore how creativity moves in the body, how it expresses itself through colour and gesture, and how it becomes accessible when we stop trying to control it. We work not to produce “better paintings” but to understand the source from which painting arises.

This is a workshop about:

Recognising your own creative potential

Allowing creativity to move freely

Releasing blocks without force

Entering a state of attentive flow

Building a dialogue with materials

Trusting the process over the outcome

It is a one-way ticket into your creative potential, approached through painting, presence, and simple but powerful practice.

Yanis’s fascination with water began during his university years, when he first became interested in its hidden properties. Since then, water has remained central to both his personal exploration and creative practice. He has spent years reading, researching and reflecting about it, drawing from scientific studies as well as ancient texts, in an effort to understand the subtle intelligence of water and its role in connecting all living things. In his artistic work, water has become both subject and collaborator, guiding rhythm, movement, stillness and chance.

This retreat is the culmination of that long exploration: an immersive experience that brings together art, awareness and the wisdom of flow. It invites participants to reconnect with their own creative current through movement, presence and attention.

Yanis Zagorianakos (YZagor) is a self-taught, full-time craftsman and painter with a BSc in Industrial Chemistry and Design from City University London. Born in Athens, he grew up between Athens, Johannesburg and London. After 15 years working as a project scientist and designer, he left scientific research and began travelling extensively in India, where he was introduced to arts and crafts. Over the following decades, he studied a wide range of crafts and painting practices while working full-time as an artist and craftsman.

He now lives and works between the Greek islands of Aegina and Amorgos. His practice spans over such varied materials: wood, metal, fabric, watercolours, acrylics, oxidations, collage, mixed media... always guided by curiosity, experimentation and the act of chance.

For Yanis, the process is as important, if not more, as the outcome. Creativity is something to be entered, not controlled. He says about himself that he has failed many times, for different reasons both in work and in life. This is what he considers his main source of education.

See his work at www.yzagor.co.uk 

Workshop Only – €750
Includes: 6 days of creative practice, daily lunch as well as tea, coffee and snacks, 1 Day road trip, materials, Studio Place.

Full Retreat – €1,800
Includes: 7night stay + 6 days of creative practice, daily breakfast at the house, lunch as well as tea, coffee and snacks, 1 Day road trip, materials, Studio Place, Pick up & drop off from & to Aegina port

Booking

To reserve your place for the workshop or the retreat, a €300 deposit is required, which is fully refundable until 60 days before the starting date. Once we receive your participation request, we will contact you to confirm whether you prefer the Workshop or Retreat option, and to confirm your chosen dates.

To participate online and view available dates, please go here.

Dates available for 2026:

4–10 April 2026

16–22 May 2026

20–26 June 2026

18–24 July 2026

22–28 August 2026

19–25 September 2026

17–23 October 2026

21–27 November 2026

5–11 December 2026