BORN 1972
Lives and works in Sydney, Australia

George Raftopoulos compled his
BAVA at the University of Western Sydney in 1994 before going on to receive a Graduate Diploma in Painting from Sydney College of the Arts in 1997.

George Raftopoulos’s paintings are immediate, responsive, intuitive. He is a story-teller. In the manner of Aesop his paintings are modern visual fables and moral lessons; observations on man’s inhumanity to man and the human condition and more prosaically the vicissitudes of the artist, along with musings on politics, philosophy and life.

The migrant experience pervades. George Raftopoulos mines the Greek myths and psyche of his heritage and his experience growing up Greek in a small Australian country town. His DNA is Greek, His nurture is Australian. His way of working is cathartic. It’s about George…his story, his history, his search for identity.

George Raftopoulos positions himself as part of an art-historical lineage. His works are a form of modern day myth- making, fables of modern life; a psycho-drama and collage of his thoughts, dreams and ideas and his flights of fancy. While outwardly heroic and romantic, his works frequently harbour subversive, often acerbic social commentary, and elements of self-examination and reinvention in the service of purging the angst and dilemma of constructing identity, both personal and national.

George Raftopoulos has exhibited his work extensively over the last two decades at galleries and institutions including: Bega Valley Regional Gallery, the Greek Embassy in Canberra and the Paris Print Biennial.

His work is held in numerous public and private collections, including those of: New England Regional Gallery, Bega Valley Regional Gallery Hellenic Museum in Melbourne, Gold Coast City Art Gallery/Museum, University of Western Sydney, Molongolo Group, ABN AMRO and Credit Suisse Australia.