Archer Defterios is a Greek-American artist based in Los Angeles, California, known for his richly layered, process-driven work that explores the interplay of color, light, and texture. Using a mix of acrylics, oils, and even fire, Defterios creates surfaces that appear minimal at first glance but reveal complex underlayers upon closer inspection. His work often conceals vivid color palettes beneath restrained compositions, encouraging a slower, more contemplative viewing experience. In June 2025, debut solo exhibition, Under Marble, featured a body of work that emphasized materiality and process, deeply informed by the textures and landscapes of Greece.
In Different Air returns to Defterios’ recurring motif of burst and impact, but with a cooler, more contained restraint. True to his bisected compositions, the divided field establishes a taut visual tension at the seam, from which a concentrated flare of pale greys, ochres, and smoky whites radiates outward. Thin rivulets of pigment slip downward into the darker half, drawn by gravity and accentuating both the horizon’s pull and the physical behavior of paint as it moves across the surface. The work encapsulates Defterios’s fascination with visible and invisible forces at play, matter shifting, revealing, and concealing itself through continual transformation.