As a child of Greek migrants, memories of the long voyage from Greece to Australia have had a profound influence on Stella Zicopoulos-Grieg’s artistic practice.
Her love of the sea was further reinforced by the summer holidays she would spend each year with family at beaches in the City of Kingston.
These personal and symbolic memories continue to inform the narratives and technical compositions of Stella’s highly abstracted and gestural oil paintings, seen in her solo exhibition.
Aptly titled ‘Thalassa’ (the Greek word for ‘sea’), the exhibition, set to open this Friday, 12 July at G3 Artspace, explores her special connection with the sea, as well as her cultural identity.
Stella makes a connection between her work and Homer’s epic ‘The Odyssey’, which in effect represents the sea of life – a journey full of both victories and heartbreaks. This is something all humans have in common, and is a connection that has had a profound influence on the artist’s work.
More recently, she has been exploring the compositional motif of ‘two-thirds of sky’ within the surface of her paintings, presenting the horizon line as a force which connects, disrupts, and creates discord within the picture plane.
Stella currently works from her private studio at Le Studio Artspace in Mordialloc.
She completed a Fine Arts Degree majoring in Ceramics and Painting at RMIT University. She later went on to complete a Graduate Diploma of Education at the University of Melbourne, and has been working as a visual arts educator for 30 years. Throughout the years, she has exhibited in group exhibitions across Victoria, as well as interstate, with her works held in private collections both locally and across Australia.
When: 13 July-10 August, 2019
Where: G3 Artspace (64 Parkers Rd, Parkdale VIC)
Admission: Free
READ MORE: WHAT’S ON Guide: Greek-inspired events across Australia, 5 July onward
