I was born in Heraklion, Crete, to Christian parents who were refugees from Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and who subsequently came to the UK during the 1970s military Junta period. These narratives form the cornerstone of my work.
My mother’s accounts of the transportation and loss of the island’s Jewish population inspired a book and a number of subsequent exhibitions and residencies in Greece, Israel and Germany. My father’s beautiful accounts of a safe and harmonious life between different faiths in the Istanbul of his childhood, before the destruction of war and the ensuing diaspora, has encouraged me to look at life unencumbered by prejudice.
My time as a teacher and most recently a Headteacher of a Hospital School, has taught me that inner happiness and a sense of wonder are to be held on with every bit of passion and strength we can muster. Life is fleeting, and Art serves the purpose of prolonging it, even beyond our time here, through its magic and infinite ways of validating the human experience.
'Official'Biography
George Sfougaras is based in the UK and works and exhibits internationally, in collaboration with a network of partners. His work is concerned with the way people’s lives are affected by history and how national symbols, myths and rhetoric shape identity. Sfougaras was born in Greece to parents who were refugees from Asia Minor, and who subsequently came to the UK during the 1970s military Junta period. The cultural changes and challenges that he experienced as an adolescent growing up in Britain later informed his educational work in the classroom and in various leadership roles within the British educational system. These narratives form the cornerstone of his work.
Sfougaras is one of six ‘inspiring, internationally renowned artists’ selected by Creative Leicestershire 2019-20. He has gained recognition with his reconstructed maps and narrative portraits and published suites of prints focusing on migration and books reclaiming aspects of Jewish, Arab and Greek history. Exhibition prizes include Small Print International (2015) and Ideas on Paper (2016). He was a finalist in Freedom.org’s Depicting Human Rights competition 2017 and was invited to speak on Identity at the Asia Triennial in Manchester in 2018. He has exhibited at Rugby Museum and Art Gallery and Leicester New Walk Museum (where his work is in the permanent collection), Alexandria Library Manchester, Valletta Malta, and Chania Greece. He was artist in residence in Crete in March 2019, in Germany in July-August 2019, 2020 and 2021 and in Jerusalem in 2020. He has held a variety of roles in Education, from teaching Art to most recently the headship of a Special school. He was the UK partner in the LEHO (Hospital School Education) EU project and served as a Director of the WELL Educational Trust 2012-15.