ilias lefas

Ilias Lefas was born in Athens, Greece, in 1977. He left Athens for Milan when he was 17 years old to study illustration at the IED (Instituto Europeo di Design). Later he studied painting and sculpture at Brera Academy of Art in Milan. He has worked as personal assistant for designers such as Wunderkammer Studio and Mauro Mori and also as set designer for fashion shootings before starting his own brand of furniture.

"Ilias’s cabinet-making skills are rich in results and allusions.

As far as the latter,  science-fiction, obviously, with a particular penchant for classic TV series (Stark Trek above all else), as well as the dystopic regressions (sometimes happily so) of the world  to a more basic life. Which preserve, nonetheless, some sort of childlike memory of the former civilization: gigantic details, shapes that reminds us of clay-like geometries (somewhat archetypal), experimentation with pure materials (such as bronze in his most recent works), simple and efficient multitasking objects that manage nonetheless to maintain their original freedom. Another obvious reference is the Brutalist movement and all the following developments of British architecture (above all, the Barbican Centre in London by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon, 1982) and, more generally, the 80’s design, with the ghostly presence of Menphis, but as if deprived of colors and turned monochrome (greys and white, in particular).

Ilias has its best results with custom-made pieces: the house of the customer becomes his studio, where he performes as artisan and at times as wood-makeobjects and therefore creator of lifeforms. These objects infused by his own élan vital, acquire their own life, autonomous biological organisms destined to exist/resist for a very long time.

That same vibratile movement is very present in the tables commissioned by PlusDesign and, quite rarely for Lefas, not originally conceived for that space. And yet, they maintain their evergreen life in the circular and/or multilayered rotatory movement, and in the quite dynamics they create around themselves.

He creates forms brutally alive, and slightly uncanny at the same time, already (pre)destined to the new times we are about to inhabit."
(Carlo Antonelli) 

Ilias has delivered projects in Genève, Milan, Paris, Berlin, Santa Margherita Ligure, Camogli, Athens, Istanbul, Oporto, and Rome so far.