Hailing from Greece, Costas Picadas grew up in a family of doctors, which defined his later artistic trajectory. He studied in Paris, at the Ecole Des Beaux-Arts and then studied Art History/Contemporary Arts at the Ecole du Louvre. After studying in Paris, he moved to New York, where he has been living and working since 1984. The source of inspiration for his artistic sensitivities is science – namely immunology and biology, human cells and the way the human body functions. Embarking on an in-depth study of bodily functions such as breathing and systems such as the immune system, he successfully rendered through an artistic lens their structure and function with a realistic lyricism, astounding audiences with his adherence to realism combined with the poetic nature of his images.
The therapeutic potential of art – similar to the mission of medicine, to cure – is a field that also interests this artist, which makes his work timelessly apposite. As he says, "I try not only to evoke an emotional but also a psychosomatic response. Numerous clinical trials and studies have shown that visual stimuli can have a real impact on a patient’s emotional and physiological state, resulting in a decrease in anxiety and even a reduction in the length of a hospital stay.” This manner of positive influence sought by the creator through his recent series of artworks titled Biophilia (2020), which is based on the assumption that humans never stop pursuing connections to nature and to other life forms. Costas Picadas’s video images as well as his imposing installations in large rooms and spaces seem to be literally breathing.
The artist’s first foray into breathing and its dynamic was in 2018, with the Breath series. It was inspired by a journey to Macchu Picchu where, due to low levels of oxygen, he found himself having difficulty breathing. That is where he first grasped just how important this function is for every living organism. Following it were the thematic series of Synapses, Mitosis, Expansion, Meiosis, Biophilia and, most recently, Biomes. But also, before all this, he had concerned himself with gravity, the constituent particles of matter – photons, atoms, electrons, and with the ether. “Everything has energy and, in that sense, light. ” he has characteristically said. Be it through natural laws or via medicine, science is ever-present at the core of Costas Picadas’s artistic expression, proving its irrevocable links to nature and to life itself.
He has, among others, shown his work in solo and group exhibitions at Queens Museum-Bulova (New York), Budman Gallery (New York), The Blender Gallery (Athens, Greece), The Young Art Fair (Switzerland), Galerie J&J Donguy (Paris), Kappatos Gallery (Athens, Greece), Galerie de Buci (Paris), Galerie de Nest (Paris), Salon de Montrouge (Paris) and at the Avignon Festival in France.
