Rafik Greiss

Rafik Greiss is an Irish-born Egyptian artist who moves between sculpture, moving-image, collage, and photography. With a keen eye for movement and vulnerability, Greiss uses the camera to preserve ephemeral points of contact, capturing sublime vistas from a moving train, footprints in the snow, or moments of intimacy between clubbers and lovers. Texture and surface are key components the artist plays with, producing glossy inkjets on Japanese paper alongside aluminium steel surfaces or structures in the gallery space. These installations evoke simultaneous feelings of dislocation and communion, as his figures are physically separated from these urban signifiers, whilst the frame provides a sense of kinship for his subjects. Drawing from a broad range of influences such as Greek mythology, fashion photography and landscape painting, there’s a distinct poetic sensibility to Greiss’s work. Cinematic in tone, traces of Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth and Wolfgang Tillmans can be found in his portfolio.