Stella Kapezanou

Stella Kapezanou’s works explore cold intimacy rendered in warm colours on enveloping large canvases. The female body dominates her compositions, with self-assured figures who assert themselves with poise and pride. Through pop aesthetics the infusion of a caustic humour, she criticises toxic masculinity and male dominance while praising vulnerability and leaning into irony. The eccentric individuals pictured in her works are often locked in complicated exchanges, scenarios into which the viewer is uncomfortably plunged.

She studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA), where she received an award and an honorary scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) for achieving first place in the entrance examinations. In 2017, she graduated from an MA at Chelsea College of Arts in London which was fully founded by a double scholarship and the Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship.

Kapezanou was recently awarded the Fulbright Artist Award 2023-2024 for participation in the Santa Fe Art Institute’s International Thematic Residency Program in New Mexico, USA. Previously she was awarded the Clyde & Co Emerging Star Award (2017) and the Cass Art Prize (2018) among many other prizes, and has undertaken residencies with renowned institutions and programs, such as the Munich Academy of Fine Arts (ADBK) Academic Exchange (2023) , the Goethe-Institute Bonn in Cologne and Berlin (2014), AucArt LAB Residency in London (2019), iAR Residency in Istanbul (2020), and CARV Residency in Cyprus (2023).

She has presented multiple solo exhibitions including: Let Them Stare ( The Edit Gallery, Limassol, CY, 2022); Theodoros & Laskarina exclusive (Fougaro, Nafplio, GR, 2021); Baby One More Time (Evripides Gallery, Athens, GR, 2020); Just a Few Drops of Pink Coppertone (Fougaro, Nafplio, GR, 2019); Single’s Party (The Edit Gallery, Limassol, CY, 2019); Brit Pond (Evripides Gallery, Athens, GR, 2018); and From Heavens With Love (The Palm Tree Gallery, London, UK, 2018).