Fotios Balas: A Practice Without Rules

Fotios Balas is a contemporary multidisciplinary artist based in Athens.

Balas works across sculpture, installation, painting, and wearable art. His practice moves fluidly between fine art, fashion, and performance, creating hybrid forms that explore identity, ritual, power, and transformation. Drawing from worn, fragile, and often discarded materials, Balas constructs a distinct visual language rooted in experimentation.

His work reflects on a culture driven by speed, surface, and visibility, often incorporating mechanical elements, light, and repurposed objects to build surreal environments that blur the line between authenticity and illusion. Presented in contexts ranging from theatre and opera to fashion and institutional exhibitions, his sculptural pieces exist both as standalone works and performative extensions of the body.

For Balas, however, art resists strict definition. “It’s not just a job,” he says. “It’s a way of life.” Guided by intuition rather than planning, he approaches creation as an ongoing process – one that preserves a sense of curiosity and childlike excitement. Despite the complexity of his work, this instinct remains central: a way of seeing the world differently, and continuously reshaping it.

IRK: Your work often begins with worn or discarded objects. What do you look for in a material before it becomes part of a piece?

Fotios Balas: Actually, I can get inspired by almost anything. A material can be a piece of paper, a broken doll, a destroyed mechanism, household supplies – anything. When I see a material, it becomes something else in my head. I don’t see objects for their original purpose. I see them from different angles, in different proportions, through transformation.

It’s something I can’t fully explain. I never do sketches. I don’t work traditionally. Even for commissions, I never sketch beforehand. I follow intuition and enjoy the process in the moment. We live in a materialistic world, but through my eyes, all objects are equal. If you give me a gold bracelet or a plastic bottle, I treat them the same. Their value doesn’t matter to me.

IRK: There’s a strong sense of fragility in your materials. Is fragility something you try to preserve or resist? 

Fotios Balas: I think fragility exists naturally in the materials I choose, and I don’t try to control it too much. I’m inspired by movements like Dadaism and Surrealism, where things are unpredictable. I’m always in a kind of constant brainstorming mode. I don’t feel lost or stuck. Ideas come continuously, and fragility is just part of that flow.

IRK: Do you have a personal “bible” or a quote – a rule, principle, or reference you return to when the work starts getting messy?

Fotios Balas: My only guide is intuition. I trust the process completely. Even when things feel chaotic, I don’t try to control them with strict principles. I just continue working and let the piece evolve naturally.

IRK: What role does technology play in your practice – as a tool, a subject, or something to resist?

Fotios Balas: Technology is part of our lives now, whether we like it or not. Even this interview uses it. So in that sense, it’s always present.

Personally, I’m not very digital. But I do think social media is a powerful platform—if an artist uses it intelligently, it can help a lot. I also sometimes use technology as material, like electronic motors or mechanical elements in my work.

But I’m against AI in art.

IRK: What’s the most overhyped idea right now in the creative industry?

Fotios Balas: I don’t like how everything works like fast food now. Everything moves too quickly. We need time to reflect, to understand who we are and what we want. This fast-forward culture makes people forget their purpose.

Another thing I don’t like is privilege in the art scene. In my country, and not only there, some people have easier access to opportunities, even if their work isn’t that strong. That’s unfair. I care about younger artists, and I see this happening. It’s not a rule, of course, but it exists.

IRK: What kind of environment do you need to create – mess, silence, music?

Fotios Balas: I enjoy working alone. I like listening to music, sometimes having a glass of wine. But more than anything, I get completely absorbed in the process. When I work, I lose track of time. I can work for 15 hours without realizing it. I forget to eat, to sleep, even my name sometimes. The process is everything for me.

IRK: What would a “failure” look like in your practice? 

Fotios Balas: Failure, for me, is to give up. To quit. Or to change what I do just to become something else. That would be failure. Everything else is personal. What might feel like a mistake to one artist could be the right path for another.

IRK: If your work had a scent, what would it smell like?

Fotios Balas: I love this question. I think it would smell like sweet ice cream. Even when you’re full, you still want ice cream. It connects to memory, to something emotional and comforting. I think my work has that kind of feeling.

IRK: If you had a time machine and could travel anywhere in the past, where would you go first?

Fotios Balas: I would love to visit the ancient Mayan civilization. Their culture is still a mystery, and I’m fascinated by what they wore, their rituals, their masks. Also, I would visit Victorian-era London. Although it would be dangerous, you could get sick very easily back then. I would need a strong immune system.

IRK: If you could be a fly for a day, on whose wall would you love to spend that day and why?

Fotios Balas: I think I would choose the Vatican. There must be rooms, archives, documents hidden from the public. I would love to see what exists there.

---

Check out more of his works here.

MASU FW 2026: SUGAR RIOT

AFTER PARTY: NIGHTCLUBS LOST IN DAYLIGHT