Gavin Glakas started drawing about the time he started walking. He grew up on his father’s stories of Greek heroes and his mother’s tales of exploration on her side of the family. He developed an interest in history and different cultures which he often used in his art.
He began painting seriously in high school in Bethesda, Maryland with Walt Bartman. However he was still in denial about actually pursuing art as a career. While studying painting at Washington University in St. Louis and the Slade School of Fine Art in London, he also got a degree in medieval history.
After graduation, he took a job in Athens, Greece, drawing cartoons for tourist T-shirts. Then he set about a more traditional Washington career path, working on Capitol Hill as a Senate staffer. About a year and a half into this, in 2000, a health scare led him to re-examine what he truly wanted to do, which was to pursue a career in art.
Glakas began studying intensively with Danni Dawson and Robert Liberace at the Art League in Alexandria, Virginia, and began exhibiting his work at Discovery Galleries in Bethesda, Maryland. 
His work has been seen in galleries throughout the country and he teaches portrait and figure drawing and painting at the Yellow Barn Studio in Glen Echo, Maryland. Glakas currently lives and works in Washington, DC.