Theodora Chorafas

A sophisticated ceramist trained in Switzerland, and widely educated in clay crafts from the Byzantine and Islamic worlds, Japan, and China, Theodora Chorafas lives and works in Greece. Her work is engaged with her home on the island of Aegina, the wider bioregion, and the global history of clay. “No Birth, No Death” is an exhibition that shows the breadth of her accomplishment as an artist, and how her work over decades is infused with certain themes that connect beneath the surface, like the flow of underground streams. The exhibition is ripe with textures, texts, patterns and smells, which are revealed when an artist is able to truly be in the flow of their practice and draw together the currents that animate such a diverse range of projects.

The title, one of the most important tenets of Buddhism, speaks to the interconnected materiality of all things – of growth, maturity, transformation, and reintegration into the earth. This is a way of understanding the world that does not put the human at the center of the universe, but rather matter itself and the ongoing cycle of life that we are all part of. This idea manifests through a series of works and installations that have been buried and unearthed by years of work, both literally and metaphorically. Everything from monumental columns to tiny scraps of paper with scribbled notes from her studio are given equal weight and are part of the same ‘personal excavation’, as Chorafas calls it. This ongoing process of delving and re-emergence enables both the artist and us to encounter this vital work with new eyes and go forth with a new understanding and appreciation of work that touches on the most urgent question of our time: how to be in ‘right relation’ with the world.