Elisabeth Theo is a Greek-Austrian contemporary artist based in Vienna, Austria, working primarily in acrylic, oil, and mixed media.

Primarily a painter, she creates still lifes, landscapes, and composed scenes drawn from observation, memory, and invention, sometimes all at once.

She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Applied Arts Vienna and maintains a full-time studio practice, with works held in private collections in Europe and North America.

Across her work, tables, interiors, and landscapes are held in a fixed moment. Recurring motifs, including a small rocket, appear throughout the paintings, linking individual works across the body of work. At times, it points toward possibility; at others, toward absence. This focus draws her repeatedly to tablescapes and figures in landscapes, where ordinary moments and domestic objects become vessels for remembrance.

She is interested in how painting can hold and extend a moment. Objects, places, and figures carry something of the time in which they were seen, remaining present within the image.

This interest in time extends into her process. She has a particular affinity for things that take time. Her compositions develop through sketching and revision, returning to earlier studies and motifs to deepen recurring themes. Her paintings are built slowly in layers, allowing earlier marks and decisions to remain visible beneath the surface. She is especially interested in the tension between what is concealed and what is revealed, between density and openness.

At its core, however, her practice remains simple: she is someone who returns to the studio each day, paints worlds she wants to live in, and keeps setting the table, even for those who are gone.

Important elements: colour, domestic objects, books, food, tulips, small figures and houses set within expansive landscapes, poetry, nature, the recurring rocket, and the particular pleasure of a moment one does not want to end.

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Education

⚘ Master of Arts, Design | University of Applied Arts, Vienna
⚘ Bachelor of Philosophy, Communicational Science | University of Vienna

Exhibitions

⚘ 2024, Nov | Art Against Depression, Group Show, Blankspace, Vienna
⚘ 2024, Sep | Beyond the Ordinary, Group Show, Blankspace, Vienna
⚘ 2024, Feb | Funny Island, Group Show, Bräuhausgasse 31, Vienna