Working from his studio in Athens, the Greek painter Stelios Pupet makes quiet, contemplative paintings that begin with a grid. Every canvas starts from a structural matrix that he builds upon, sometimes leaving a square angle open for a cloud or a stretch of grass, and sometimes bending the geometry into a natural curve.

The grid is a tool rather than a rule. Pupet chooses shapes as he goes, colours them, changes them and lets the painting develop without a fixed plan, so that figures, landscapes and animals emerge from panels of colour rather than from drawn outlines. The softened edges give the work a peaceful, almost dreamlike atmosphere, with women in mysterious poses and fragments of nature drifting in and out of focus.

Pupet came to the grid about four years ago, while working on a digital sketch he hoped to turn into a screen print. What began as a practical device for transferring an image became the centre of his painting, a guide that structures the picture while leaving room for intuition and accident. His subjects are mostly figurative, often women in mysterious poses, alongside animals and landscapes that he simplifies and gently distorts.

Recent works include La politique de l'autruche, a 2026 oil on canvas measuring 160 by 180 centimetres, alongside Reflection of a whisper from 2024 and Reminiscence from 2025. He has also painted murals, including Gefüge in Eberbach, Germany, and Current state, made in 2026 at the former Columbia Records factory in Athens.

In recent months Pupet has begun experimenting with pastel pencils and plans to bring oil pastels into his larger works on canvas. Several murals are also planned for 2027, extending a practice in which academic painting, digital culture and the discipline of the grid keep informing one another.