Elias Kafouros (b. 1978, Athens, Greece) lives and works in Athens. The artist has received a BFA in Painting from the Athens School of Fine Arts in 2004 and studied Animation at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Kafouros’ solo exhibitions include: ‘Push Buttons’ at Dio Horia Gallery, Athens; ‘Incognito’ at Dio Horia Gallery, Mykonos; ‘The Image is Unsustainable’ at Francoise Heitsch Gallery, Munich; ‘A Thesis on the Shelf’ at AD Gallery, Athens; ‘High on Definition’ at Volta 7, Basel. Kafouros’ group exhibitions include: ‘Art- Athina Pop Up’, Dio Horia Gallery, Athens; ‘Symbols and Iconic Ruins’ at National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; ‘Newer Revolutionary Narratives - Transitions of an Ideal Nation’, J&E Vatis Art Hall, Syros; ‘Caritas Romana: 15 Acts of Devotion’, Main exhibition of the 59th Thessaloniki International Film Festival at Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki. His work has been featured in Hypebeast and Artforum, among others. Kafouros has been commissioned by Hèrmes to create a series of designs for the legendary Hèrmes silk scarves. In 2013, he was the recipient of the Fulbright Foundation Grant.
Drawing from such disparate and wide-ranging points of reference as film, online culture, Renaissance painting, or Buddhist meditation mandalas, Kafouros weaves dizzyingly complex and prodigiously oversaturated compositions that are unmistakably idiosyncratic and instantly recognizable. His work is best seen as instances of experiential art. While their medium may present at first glance as traditional paint on flat canvas, the true impact of these works reveals itself within the cognitive space of their perceiver, the utterly hypnotizing effect of the deliberate density of their virtuosic composition unfolding gradually as a deeply personal processual revelation, rather than in simple terms of seeing and acknowledging a singular image.