Artist, animator, set and puppet designer

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nikos had a passion for drawing from a very young age. When he moved back to Greece, painting continued to be passion even as a teenager and he chose to study Design, History of Art, Sculpture, Traditional Crafts, and Puppet Making at the Fine Art Department in the Polytechnic School of Trikala.

He later majored in Conservation of Ancient Monuments and Works of Art at the Athens Technical and Arts Institution, where he learnt not just design and restoration but also the crafting and nature of all materials used in art through the ages.

Zarras worked in Athens as a puppet designer, theatre set designer, creator of children festival sets, interior designer, and as a theatre and television animator for puppet shows. He has also worked with Greece's most famous puppet maker, Lakis Apostolidis, for more than a decade as a puppet maker and set designer.

Over the years, he broadened his skills and expertise which now include oil paintings, iconography and wall paintings. His portfolio contains an abundance of baby rooms, churches, restaurants, interior decorating and cartoon characters that he created both, in Greece and in the UK.

Moving to the Middle East, Zarras devised a unique technique by only using pure sand without any colour for my paintings. During the short time that he has been in Oman, he already participated in Al Duqm Exhibition in Bait Muzna Gallery and later in a group exhibition at The One & Only Royal Mirage represented by the Galatea Gallery in Dubai. A few of Zarras' sand paintings are exhibited in the Abu Dhabi Art Hub.