Elena Behrakis

Elena Behrakis (b. 1970, Lowell, Mass., United States) 

Elena Behrakis is a Greek American visual artist whose highly expressive, semi-abstract works are characterized by their energetic brushstrokes and their allusions to experiences of female strength, invisibility, radiance, and vulnerability. Elena works intuitively, placing each mark on her canvas or paper as a spontaneous reaction to the constant flow of her thoughts and sensations. Through raw, gestural manipulation of oil paint, ink, or Japanese watercolor, she grapples with the dynamic universal struggle between light and darkness as she strives to reclaim serenity within chaos. 

Through her education at Boston University’s School for the Arts and Yale University’s Norfolk School of Art, Elena received an extensive academic training in figurative art and other classical techniques. A few years ago, she renewed her artistic practice after focusing on the challenges and rewards of founding her own business and raising a family. Elena’s recent work, richly colored and intricately layered in its expressive application of media, alludes to liminal states of consciousness, physical transitions, connections between nostalgia and the natural landscape, and emotional stasis and release. The scratches and marks on the surfaces of her paintings are never mere decoration. They are her accumulated inner history made visible, the tensions bubbling within her consciousness. These works reward slow looking. They require the viewer’s sustained attention and a temporary rejection of our constant actions of rapid skimming and scrolling. 

In her artistic practice, Elena acts much like one of those allegorical Fates, shaping the identity of each of her works from start to finish. She excavates the past and seeks equilibrium in the present through her layering and manipulation of her materials, through the building up and gradual revealing of her imagery. Since her return to the studio several years ago, she has exhibited her art in group exhibitions around the United States. She lives and works in Massachusetts.