ZAC KOUKORAVAS
currently represented in Melbourne Australia, by
Zac Koukoravas is a contemporary visual artist
Zac Koukoravas graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2012. In 2016 he won the Best Artist Award at DenFair and in 2014 held a successful sell-out debut at the Melbourne Art Fair. In 2013 Koukoravas won the FLG’s Emerging Artist Award and held his first solo exhibition with FLG in 2014. His work is represented in the Justin Art House Museum (JAHM) Collection and has featured in various JAHM's group exhibitions over recent years. His works are held in private collections nationally.
ARTIST CV
Born 1975 in Melbourne Australia, Lives and works in Melbourne
Education
2012 Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne
2009 Diploma of Visual Arts, North Melbourne Institute of TAFE
Solo exhibitions
2023 High Fade: Flinders Lane Gallery
2021 Homemade Weapons: Flinders Lane Gallery
2019 Mixed Messages: Flinders Lane Gallery
2017 Blue Lines: Flinders Lane Gallery
2016 Supermodified: Flinders Lane Gallery
2014 Visualised: Flinders Lane Gallery
2013 Flora Mirificus: c3 Contemporary Art Space, Abbotsford Convent
Selected group exhibitions
2022 Art &Gender: JAMH
2019 30x30: Flinders Lane Gallery
2018 Subterrain: Flinders Lane Gallery satellite exhibition at Collins Place Gallery
2018 Black & White and Red all over: JAHM
2018 Translation 1: Tidal Space Gallery
2017 Denfair: Melbourne Exhibition Centre
2016 Fuse: Flinders Lane Gallery
2014 Render: Screen Space
2014 Perceptions of Space: Justin Collection, Glein Eira Gallery
2013 Exploration 13: Flinders Lane Gallery
2012 Proud 2012: Margaret Lawrence Gallery
2012 VCA Grad Show: Margaret Lawrence Gallery
2012 50 Shades of White: Student Gallery, VCA
2011 Proud 2011: Margaret Lawrence Gallery
2010 Mixed Treasures: Student Gallery, VCA
2010 Proud 2010: Margaret Lawrence Gallery
2009 Bound, Artist's Book Show: Eltham Library Community Gallery
2009 Eviction: Fitzroy Street Gallery 2009 Graduation Show: A Space Gallery, NMIT
Awards
2016 Denfair Best Artist Award
2013 Flinders Lane Gallery Emerging Artists Encouragement Award
2013 Sofitel Art Room Series (shortlisted)
2012 David Teleskivi Memorial Sculpture Prize
2012 Orloff Family Charitable Trust Award
2012 John Vickery Scholarship
2009 Dean’s Art Award
Invited talks
2016: Fuse artist talk with Owen Craven
2013: invited speaker at the ‘Art and Arch’ public lecture as part of Process, the Victorian Young Architects and Graduates Network public lecture
Bibliography
2018 Art Collector Magazine 83 pp.112-113
2014 Catalog Essay for 'Render" : Simone Hine, Screen Space
2014 The Age, Entertainment: Art and Design, Review by Robert Nelson
Collections
Justin Art House Museum
Catalogue Essay | Excerpt
Dr Elizabeth Bodey
Koukoravas’ large scale works, painted on multiple layers of glass and perspex, are characterized by his use of shadow and light, depth and space. Layering additional panels to create further complexity and depth, Zac imposed strict parameters on his creative process, finding infinite possibilities within set limitations. Conflicting elements of chance and structure, movement and stillness result in works full of peaks and plateaus, structure and composure - the outcome of gambling with the dichotomy of order and chaos.
Embedded within Zac’s abstract painting practice are a diverse range of pictorial traditions and cultural experiences including graffiti, architecture, the electronic music scene, political activism and our relation to natural and urban environments. Colour and form, appropriated and deconstructed from the surrounding environment, play a key role in the aesthetics of the work.
His is a hard/soft-edged, intriguing dialogue of piercing forms, yet possessing an atmospheric quality created by a sfumato effect that draws us into potent spaces in and around the painted surfaces. The overlapping directional shapes, the materials used and the application of paint by airbrush suggest a sense of fragmented soundwaves in deep space and of the ‘far away’, as if pointing to the future. Texture is denied. Surfaces are smooth and screen-like, and within these forms there are suggestions of the physical presence of another, more tenuous world.
As with many artists, materials and processes formulate the entrance to these ‘other’ worlds. Koukoravas’ works consist of layered sheets of glass and acrylic, painted on both sides, suspended within a darkened interior frame. By purposefully using a limited range of enamel and acrylic colours, the meticulous shapes within his compositions are delicate, floating as if in a space both microscopic and vast. They permeate a sense of mystery. Traditional brush marks and textures are absent in this conversation of contrast: sharp and soft, opacity and transparency. Pellucid forms both emerge and recede, shifting focus from background to foreground and back again.