Costas Varotsos was born in 1955 in Athens. He studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome (1973-76) and architecture in Pescara, at the Arte Scuola di Architettura of the University of Pescara (1976-81), where he began his career with exhibitions and performances.

His first solo exhibition in Athens took place in 1982 (Desmos gallery) shortly after his return to Greece. In the same year, he participated in the Europalia '82 festival in Belgium. In 1983, he built a large sculpture of glass plates in Nicosia, Cyprus, entitled Poet, which was placed at the historic relic and cultural center of Famagusta Gate. From this experience, the famous Runner of Athens will emerge; an 8-metre-high sculpture of glass and metal, which was placed initially at Omonia Square (1988) and was afterwards moved to the Megalis tou Genous Scholis square (1994). In 1987, he participated in the Biennale of São Paulo, and he participated in the Venice Biennale twice: in 1993, representing Italy, and in 1999, representing Greece among other Greek artists. That same year, he was elected Professor of Architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Many of his projects have received awards. He was honored for his overall artistic contribution in Italy with the title of Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana (2004) and the award Segno d'Oro (2007). A monograph on his work was published in 2009.