George Koutsouvelis

morse signals

Luminous Becoming

imagine

Nocturnal Negatives

poem for two strangers

in search of contact

Biography

Born 1974. Zakynthos island, Greece.George Koutsouvelis is a visual artist, photographer and educator who lives and works in Athens, Greece. He is a certified Adobe instructor and also has degree in Computer Science. Over the years, George has gained solid experience teaching workshops in photo editing, photographic practice and thinking, always in experiential, project based aproach.

statement

My work as a visual artist is one of explorations of how the absent and invisible shape the presence of place and time. With photography, I engage in reply to places that are suspended at the limit of visibility—states of passing visibility where sense is regained with diminutive gesture, fleeting light, and dissolving atmospheres. These pictures are not records but mindscapes, where the everyday turns into the poetic and the real is inextricably entwined with the remembered.Inspired by the principles of “Slow Art Movement”, my practice is concerned with the power of duration. Rather than seeking immediate impact, my body of photographs unfolds incrementally, inviting the viewer to stand still, to interpret, to reflect. By purposefully employing a smartphone as a main apparatus for my personal projects —an item of immediacy and ubiquity—I provoke historical hierarchies in photographic practice, locating perception and intention over technical purity. This move is resonant of photography's progressive character at a moment when seeing is configured as much by digital interfaces as by bodily presence.Impermanence, identity, and digital memory are all common themes within my work. The locations I depict are both real and symbolic, arenas in which personal histories and the collective unconscious converge. Within these nuanced storytelling, I attempt to arrest the in-between—the moment before disappearance, the glow after presence, the fleeting loveliness of seeing itself.

Selected Exhibitions

2023  Exposure Photo Festival, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.2022  Influx Gallery, The endless exhibition , Notting Hill London.2021  Indian Photography Festival , Hyderabad, India.2021  ImageNation Milan: The new aesthetics, Milan, Italy.2019  Venus Gallery, Reflect on me, Mykonos island, Greece.2018  Saatchi Gallery, On Rain, London.

Interviews/presentations

Hocus Photus35 mm by ManiannaMoments CollectiveiFocusEdge of HumanityJapan Camera HuntersPhotologioEFSYN newspaper ( EN/EL)

prizes/awards

2022  12th Annual International Mobile Photo Awards (MPA), Honorable Mention.2020  10th Annual International Mobile Photo Awards (MPA), 1st Place Winner.2018  LensCulture Street Photography Awards, Editors Pick.

Imagine: An algorythmic dystopia

(excerpt)

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”G.K. Chesterton

We live in an era where machines decide what we see, filtering, warping, and even generating reality. This project subverts human agency in an increasingly automated visual culture. Are we image makers anymore, or passive recipients of algorithmically constructed visions?Based on Vilém Flusser's thesis about technical images, I explore how photography has drifted away from capturing reality towards the production of programmed images. Flusser had seen photographs as texts—coded messages full of meaning. A.I. images take this a step further: they are not taken but written, turning words into vision, language into constructed worlds.Who, then, is the real author? What does it mean when machines, having been trained on existing data, start to define our shared visual memory? This project imagines the point at which human intention gives way to machine logic and shows us a future in which images do not merely record the world but determine it.In an age where images are produced quicker than they can be comprehended, this work is a call for pause. It invites us to slow down, ask questions of what we're seeing, and take back our place in curating visual culture before the structures we've created begin to see on our behalf.

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Nocturnal Negatives

Night is more than the absence of light—it is a whole world where sight is transformed and the unseen begins to take hold. In Nocturnal Negatives, I enter into the mysterious space where reality and dreams cross, inviting the viewers to go beyond the boundaries of their own inner universe. Through a series of precisely constructed photographs, I hope to introduce to the outside world the intangible feelings of the subconscious mind, materializing the murmurs of my innermost thoughts and emotions.Fundamentally, this project invokes the unconscious, that realm in which dreams are played out. Night is a transition to an inner world, in which memory and imagination are merged with sensation. The actual and the not-actual coexist there in congruent contradiction and not conflict, becoming landscapes personal yet irreducible. The images take in this condition—of momentary presence, of meaning felt, not coded.This series is not only a chronicle of night, is an exploration of unseen energies that give rise to perception. Shadows hold pieces of thought, reflections are portals, and the hidden is no more or less audible than the familiar. Images are not fixed representations of reality but invitations—to cross the limits of sight, to remain in the warm hum of the unconscious, to be where world and dream converge.

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Luminous Becoming

Light moves slowly over the surface, wearing down edges, dissolving figures into space. Shadows swell, contract, reform—every moment a silent border between being and not being. In Luminous Becoming, I explore this evanescence, capturing the tension between what is seen and what is felt, between the concrete and the insubstantial.Essential to its being, this work is transformation—the quiet but profound process of becoming. A chrysalis unrolling toward the unknown prior to its bursting forth anew, these images track the journey of the soul from states of metamorphosis. Light as companion and doorway, it shatters over the moment prior to birth, the static thrum of rebirth.Space here is real and symbolic—a space of transition where individual and collective memory converge. In embracing the ephemeral nature of light, I am illustrating not disappearance but rebirth, the way presence lingers before re-forming again. These photographs are not fixed narrative but reflective space, opening to self-reflection and emotional engagement.

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poem for two strangers

A fish
and a bird
can fall in love
But where
will they make
their nest?

In the space between encounter and understanding, "Poem for Two Strangers" is a visual meditation on fleeting human relationships. Images explore the contradiction of shared solitude. Each frame is a line of a poem, in an unstated dialogue between self and other, defying expectations of individuality and collective awareness. Also negotiates existence's interstices, where fleeting encounters make lasting impressions. Probes the essence of identity, boundary porosity, and our profound interconnectedness.

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in search of contact

In this series, I explore the tension between isolation and our fundamental human need for connection. Through this set of paired images – vibrant color photographs alongside stark black and white compositions – I invite viewers to experience the world through two distinct lenses: the deceptively lively exterior we present to others, and the often lonely interior landscape of those yearning for genuine human contact. By using the metaphor of a stray dog, I tap into our shared vulnerability and the primal nature of our desire for companionship.This body of work challenges observers to confront the disparity between outward appearances and inner experiences in modern society. By juxtaposing the observer's colorful perspective with the monochromatic view of the "stray," I aim to provoke a reconsideration of our assumptions about connection and belonging. Through these contrasting visuals, I not only highlight the pervasive sense of disconnection in contemporary life but also celebrate the resilience of the human spirit in its unrelenting pursuit of meaningful relationships. My hope is that “In Search of Contact" will inspire reflection on our own experiences of isolation and our capacity for empathy and connection in an increasingly fragmented world.

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Morse signals

(excerpt)

Darkness is not the absence of light; it's a state of being. Darkness takes away certainty, distorts time, and steals only tough emotion: fear, loneliness, desperation, but also the unconquerable drive to reach. “Morse Signals” explores what it means to be within this void, where every burst of communication is both a lifeline and an echo of emptiness.Morse code, once something to be hopeful for in desperate times, then becomes a symbol of humankind's existence within darkness. Flashing moments of illumination, fragmented messages—signals into the abyss, never knowing whether they will be replied to. With this work, I translate these fleeting transmissions into a visual lexicon of distress, survival, and the precarious hope that somewhere, someone is listening.And then, morning's first light. The night does not lift all at once, but it recedes. Shadows lose their edge, outlines start to take shape, and with them, the still potential for connection. A Hope.

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