Ondrej Coufal was born in January 1979, in Pelhrimov, Czech Republic. His first exhibition, a series of drawings in the foyer of a local cinema, was held in his hometown at the age of ten. A year later, in 1990, a second exhibit took place, this time in a monastery chapel in Ceska Lipa.

Barely nineteen years old, Ondrej has already had twelve exhibitions, five of them in Prague galleries. Most of his exhibitions are individual; on occasions he exhibits with his father, Milan, who is a sculptor and a poet.
 

Ondrej is, for the most part, self-taught. After one year in art school he terminated his formal studies. Working from live models and still lifes was, he felt, "threatening to his style".

He had developed his own style of drawing by the age of five. The most important influence on his drawings is the works of Egon Schiele.

Coufal's paintings, mostly oils on panels, are reminiscent of Northern Renaissance portraiture by such artists as Jan van Eyck and even Durer, and are executed in bold and flat colors. The bizarre and grotesque found in his images are a result of his attempt to "portray people from the inside". The artist manages to translate the historical into the utterly contemporary and often surreal, thus resulting in engrossing and thought-provoking works of art.

The writings of Franz Kafka and the poetry of the Bible, are regarded by Ondrej as the main sources of his inspiration.

Ondrej has illustrated three books (two by Kafka), and his drawings are frequently published in literary magazines. There are two documentaries about him and several articles in the Czech press.