Hisham Echafaki is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist working across painting in oil, acrylic and resin to explore the intricate beauty of the natural world and humanity’s shifting relationship to it. Merging surrealism with classical technique, his work gives animal subjects, many of them endangered species, a haunting sentience: creatures rendered with such precision and painterly depth that they seem to hold a gaze, a memory, an emotion.
Rather than depicting animals as passive subjects of observation, Hisham imbues them with interior life and imaginary narrative, inviting viewers to question where the boundary between human and animal experience really lies and what it means to share a planet whose balance we are are actively reshaping. Beneath the surrealist composition, runs a sustained environmental message. His chosen fauna and flora subjects are under pressure from habitat and biodiversity loss, climate change, overexplotation of natural resources and the accelerating spread of urbanisation that carry the weight of ecosystems in visible decline.
Through anthropomorphism and trompe-l’œil, his animals take on human gestures and an uncanny, lifelike presence, his paintings on Perspex and resin often reading as faux taxidermy, specimens so convincing they seem to be, or once have been, real. The result is work that is at once visually arresting and intellectually resonant, pieces that reward close looking while carrying a deeper ecological charge. Beneath the technical virtuosity lies a consistent inquiry: how do we see ourselves in relation to the natural world, and what responsibility does that relationship demand of us?
Since 2012, Hisham has exhibited internationally across galleries and leading art fairs, with works held in numerous private and public collections. His piece Cocoon received a prize at the London Biennale in 2025, and Abandoned Nest was awarded the International Art Critics Award at the Chianciano Biennale in 2026. Other milestones include a 13-metre public commission for the Musée de la Poste in Paris and a 2023 collaboration with Pandora for its Love Unboxed collection. Through each new body of work, he continues to craft a distinctive artistic voice, one that merges technical mastery with environmental consciousness, inviting viewers to reconsider what they owe the natural world.
Exhibitions
2026 Chianciano Art Biennale, Tuscany, Italy (International Art Critics Award for “Abandoned nest”)
2026 Future Icon Selects, Group Exhibition, London
2026 Affordable Art Fair Battersea, Tom Cox Gallery, London
2025 Grounding, Group Exhibition, Tom Cox Gallery, London
2025 Salon National Des Artistes Animaliers, Group Show, Paris, France
2025 5th Annual Exhibition, Tom Cox Gallery, London
2025 Southern Nature Art, Group Show , Wickham, UK
2025 London Biennale 2025, Gagliardi Gallery, Chelsea Town Hall, London (Chianciano Art Museum Award for “Cocoon”)
2024 Symphonie Sauvage, Solo Show, Espace Culturel Jean De Joigny, France
2024 Versus, Group show, Versus Arts Gallery, London
2023 Art of Love, Immersive Art Installation for ‘Love unboxed’ campaign , PANDORA, London
2023 Summer Group show, Adlib Gallery, London
2023 Queer Frontiers, Group show, Artiq, London
2022 Mirabilia Naturae, Solo show, Museum Jean Larcena, Val d’Ocre, France
2022 Wild and Wonderful, Group show, 508 Gallery, London
2021 The Other Art Fair, Saatchi, London
2020 ‘Forces’ Group Show, ArtNumber23, London
2020 Relationships: an Artist’s perspective Group show, BOS Gallery, Dublin
2019 Musee de La Poste, Commissioned Mural, Paris
2019 The Other Art Fair, Saatchi, Los Angeles
2018 The Other Art Fair, Saatchi, London
2017 The Other Art Fair, Saatchi, Bristol
2017 ‘Flourish’ Group Show, Chelsea Fringe, London
2017 Talented Art Fair London
2016 ‘Codes of Faith’ Group Show, Laura I Gallery, London
2016 Artistic collaboration with the Donmar Warehouse Theatre, London
2015 Lusus Naturae Solo Show, Butterfly Art News, London
2013 ‘The Many Faces of David Bowie’ Group Show, Opera Gallery, London, Paris, Dubai
2013 ‘Paris Match Covers’ Group Show, Opera Gallery, Paris
2012 Candid Arts Trust Group Show, London
2011 Solo show, Kufa Gallery, London