artist
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.
Description
Trace White Composition 9 exemplifies Defterios’s nuanced, layered approach to surface and perception. At first glance, it appears as a soft, almost monochromatic field of pale whites and creams, but with time, layers of faint color, peach, lavender, green, and blue, emerge through the layers. The composition is divided horizontally: the upper section hums with subtle, atmospheric motion, while the lower half rests in stillness, a smooth expanse of pale pigment suggesting marble, mist, or light reflecting off stone.
Defterios’s process-driven sensibility is evident in the painting’s textured strata, where traces of earlier gestures and removals linger. The interplay between concealment and revelation, the tension between what is seen and what is sensed, echoes his stated interest in presence and absence. The work feels both ephemeral and tactile, like a memory suspended in pigment, evoking the weathered surfaces of ancient architecture or sun-bleached Mediterranean landscapes. In this way, the painting not only reflects Defterios’s Greek heritage but also his meditative engagement with material, light, and time.
