CV

Born: 1975, Athens, Greece
Resides and works: Melbourne, Australia

EDUCATION
2025 Master of Design (Contemporary Art), University of South Australia, Adelaide - Australia
2021 Advance Diploma in Visual Arts. Flinders University, Adelaide - Australia.
2014 Graduate Diploma of Education, University of South Australia, Adelaide - Australia.
1999 Bachelor of Visual Communication, University of South Australia, Adelaide - Australia.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 MEMORIES AND FALLACIES, Red Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 SYNAXIS, Liverpool St Gallery, Adelaide, Australia.
2025 RED SALON, Red Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.
2024 HUE & CRY ART PRIZE, Hue and Cry Gallery, Geelong, VIC, Australia.
2024 MEDIUM DENSITY, SALA, Liverpool Street Gallery, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
2024 ICOGNITO ART SHOW, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
2024 FIFTY SQUARED ART PRIZE, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
2024 YOU LOOK GOOD ON PAPER, Red Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
2024 SMALL WORKS ART PRIZE, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
2021 HAPTIC, Light square Gallery, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

AWARDS
2025 Master of Design Award of Excellence
2024 University of South Australia, UNISA Creative Merit Award

BIO

Nicholas Pelekis (b. Athens, Greece) is an abstract expressionist painter based in Melbourne, Australia. Working primarily with acrylic on canvas, he is best known for exploring memory through colour, gesture, and texture. His paintings distil fragments of the past into layered abstractions, where shifting tones and marks create dialogues between personal and collective experiences, often blurring the boundary between the real and the imagined.

Pelekis’s visual language is informed by a diverse creative background. He began his career in Europe as a designer and senior art director, developing an acute sensitivity to composition, rhythm, and form across international campaigns. His experience in design continues to underpin his methodical approach to colour and structure on the canvas. Parallel to his practice, Pelekis has spent over a decade teaching design and art history—first in Asia, later in Australia—where he now balances education with his own studio work. He holds a Master’s degree in Design (Contemporary Art), which deepens the conceptual foundations of his practice.

His work has been exhibited nationally, with notable presentations at Brunswick Street Gallery and Red Gallery in Melbourne, and Liverpool Street Gallery and Light Square Gallery in Adelaide. Through abstraction, Pelekis invites viewers to consider memory not as fact, but as shifting narrative.