“Many people love the sea, but Maniatakos went further than most” is an understatement.
After a few days out of the water, Yiannis Maniatakos would develop what his wife called a land-locked look in his eye. Many people love the sea, but Maniatakos went further than most. He was a painter, and his subject was the ocean floor. He made all his paintings up close and underwater.
Before painting, he would prepare a canvas with a hydrophobic coating (ingredients today unknown) to make it water-repellent. With weights tied to his ankles and wearing a breathing apparatus of his own devising, he would sink with his canvas to the ocean floor — often while a family member waited above in a sailboat — and press oil paint onto the canvas with a spatula. Back on the surface, he would wash the painting with fresh water and dry it before returning it, once more, to the sea bed to “cure.”