George Tourlas (b.1979) lives and works in Athens, Greece. In his creative practice he combines different mediums such as acrylics, charcoal and colored pencils on paper. He also often includes digital design, collage, sculpture and silkscreen printing in his interpretations of the human body. In his work, macabre and grotesque portraits are depicted in a deconstructed and disfigured state; scarecrow-like people with mutant anatomies and parasite-infected skin. Disoriented caricatures of zombified figures emerge through unpredictable combinations of various elements. Internal organs are being watched, while they merge with external anatomical features. Fragments of well-groomed hair, polished nails, decaying flesh, bodily fluids and bowels, broken bones, crustaceans, horns and tentacles assemble constructs of exquisite corpse drawings. The portrait of a familiar face now becomes a monstrous apotropaic facade, an uncanny ridiculous mask that will not conceal or camouflage, but only further expose. Deriving from the ecology of fear, he interrelates social structures with the biological dynamics of the predator-prey-parasite system. George Tourlas combines elements from the body horror genre and creates images where the lines between desire, pleasure and disgust are blurred. Welcome to the worst nightmare of all, reality.
