About

Kostas Papakostas is a Greek multidisciplinary artist based in London, predominantly working with painting and video.

His video work is static and observational, looking outward to the world and seeking to transform the mundane into the contemplative, while exploring nature, the passage of time and the human condition.

His paintings, in contrast, are defined by dynamic movement and emerge from a visceral, physical process. Harnessing both chaos and control, Kostas uses his brushwork to explore themes of distortion, reconfiguration, and surrender.

Kostas' work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in private and corporate collections.

In addition to his artistic practice, Kostas is an award-winning Art Director. He has developed and art directed global campaigns for Sony PlayStation, Apple, MTV and Christian Dior amongst others.

Artist Statement

I’m drawn to movement, flow, impermanence. I find meaning in things that never settle, in that constant state of flux.

I don’t plan. I walk into the studio and let my awareness and emotions surface. Then I get to work. I place the canvas on the floor and move around it circling, leaning, stepping back, bending low.
That’s how I get close physically, emotionally, fully.

I paint one brushstroke at a time. One gesture, start to finish. No corrections. No layering. If it fails, I wipe it away and start again. I wait for the moment when breath, timing and intention line up. Then I move. One stroke. That’s the painting.

I’m not trying to make a statement or tell a story. I’m trying to be present. To let the painting break free from my control and find its own destiny. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn’t. But when it does, something real slips through.

Each brushstroke is a trace of an intuitive choreography, a record of a moment in time. They breathe, flow, stir.
My work comes from a desire to strip everything down and make space for something direct and honest.