Darek Fortas is a London-based visual artist who graduated with an MA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal College of Art. He has worked with a range of established creative and cultural partners, and his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally (LE BAL, Paris, 2018; Bloomberg New Contemporaries, London, 2018, and Newcastle, 2017; RUA RED, Dublin, 2016; The Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2022; among others).

His socially engaged lens-based practice has been offering a poetic and uncompromised take on our shared history, heritage, power relationships, and current issues. Through his work, Fortas accentuates the potential of lens-based form as a mode of deconstruction, the role of images in the distribution of power, and the subversive value of a lens-based mode of enquiry.

In 2014, he was awarded the Camera Clara Prize by The Grésigny Foundation in Paris. Fortas was also shortlisted for the MAC International 2014 Art Prize as a part of the MAC International Biennial. He won the Propeller Fine Art Award in 2011 and was shortlisted for The Foam Paul Huf Award (2012) and the BMW Residency Award at Musée Nicéphore Niépce (2018).

His works have been featured in the British Journal of Photography, Irish Arts Review, Source Photographic Review, Uncertain States, and various online photography blogs and magazines.

Fortas’ works are in several public and private collections, including Institut Polonais Paris, Fondation Grésigny, and Pierre Passebon Gallery Paris. In 2018, the UK Government Art Collection acquired work from his ‘Skene’ project.

He is a recipient of the Arts Council England's Developing Your Creative Practice grant and the Arts Council Ireland's Visual Art Project Award.
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