The vast expanse of sea, the crashing waves are among Stella Zicopoulos-Grieg’s strongest first memories.
Together with her parents and two sisters, Stella, aged seven, like many migrants before and after her, boarded the English vessel Orsova in 1964 and set sail for Australia.
Hailing from Kozani in northern Greece, this new landscape was a shock to her system.
“I recall when I was out on the deck looking at the sea, the horizon, as something overwhelming and quite large in scale. Looking at the void, looking for a sight of land,” she recalls.
That horizon line, the sea, its depth – full of emotive qualities – is a sight that has stayed with Stella throughout the years, and has made its way into her artworks time and time again.
Most recently, those ideas have culminated in her exhibition, aptly titled Thalassa, currently on display at G3 Artspace until 10 August.
Aside from being a long-time resident of the City of Kingston, having grown up in the beach-side Melbourne suburb of Mordialloc, where the artist continues to live and work, her Greek identity is ever-present, and the shift she experienced from calling Greece home to arriving on the shores of Victoria.
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A creative child, with a penchant for drawing horses and the sea, her talent was acknowledged by her parents; with Stella’s year 12 work is still on display in their living room over four decades on. They encouraged her to continue with her arts studies beyond high school, going on to do Fine Arts at RMIT, majoring in ceramics and painting, which was rather rare for working class Greek migrants of the time. More often than not, their emphasis was for their children to get an education that would lead them to secure employment.
This is not lost on Stella. She attributes this ‘luck’ in part to her parents being rather artistic themselves – aside from working on tobacco farms in Greece, her mother was also a weaver and her father an artisan shoemaker.
“They were very supportive and they trusted us following our passion. It was rare, believe me. Having gone to RMIT and being involved in the Greek club and all that during my time there, a lot of students were quite in awe of us because they weren’t allowed to follow their dreams,” she says.
Stella first returned to Kozani at 29, an experience she recalls as “very emotional”, but says she could understand why her parents left.
“It’s very beautiful, it’s a wonderful place to live, but I can understand the hardships they encountered along that journey of their life and how they wanted a better life for their children,” she says, citing her mother’s experience, who didn’t have the opportunity to get an education. After losing her mother early in life, she was left with no option but to leave school and become the caregiver for her father and siblings.
“I think she resented and was very distressed that she had to leave school and I think that was a contributing factor in her making that big decision to come to Australia for a better life for us. And I think that migrant story resonates with anyone who has left their homeland.”
Stella’s migration story, and her connection to the sea, is one that years later continues to resonate with people around the world who are faced with the difficult decision to leave all that is familiar behind.
“I was very young at the time, and I think those ideas and those thoughts and feelings are inherent in my psyche … that universal journey is relevant to all of us. I think that journey that we take can bring mystery, heartbreak, it can bring joy, victory; it’s quite a wonderful experience and daunting at the same time.”
This nostalgia is something that comes and goes for Stella, but she admits that in recent years as her mother gets older – she turns 90 this September – and they relive her life experiences through storytelling, that her memories are stronger than ever, as is the need to express them.
“I think we all tend to look back, and reflect on our life as young children, as female artists, as living in Australia of Greek origin and the most interesting thing is that nostalgia comes through and resurfaces time and time again.”
To mark her mother’s milestone birthday, Stella is planning a trip to Greece to paint the landscape, which they once called home.
Over the years Stella also worked as an art teacher, empowering students to have the confidence to express themselves through their art her second passion. During that time she herself experimented with different mediums, but found herself gravitating back towards painting on canvas.
“It’s the beautiful medium of working with oil; I love the fluidity of the textural qualities of oil paint on canvas, and I think as a vehicle to express my ideas I’ve done a number of large pieces and smaller pieces, and it fits well with me.”
Exhibition details: Thalassa
When: Now on until 10 August, 2019
Where: G3 Artspace (64 Parkers Rd, Parkdale VIC)
Admission: Free
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