Stella's work explores precarity and ephemerality through craft in the post-digital era. Her practice is wide ranging and includes installation, photography, film, writing and most recently, ceramics and sculpture. Inspired by the narratives of women as well as her Greek and Australian dual upbringing, her themes develop from a sense of travel and migration.
She explains her technique for her coiled vases:
"My method is based on intuition and using emotions when building my coiled vases. I prefer the freedom of gestural expressiveness to pre-designed sketches, allowing for the process and the material to guide me. This technique allows for a slower, less formal way of hand building. A reciprocal relationship develops with each coil vase I make, which is created organically, out of layers of coils. A finished work emerges when there is a personality evident in the vase, evident in the flaws and uneven marks visible on the surface of the vessel".
Born in Greece, Stella has lived in several places outside of her native country including Sydney, Australia as well as in Los Angeles, U.S. She has been largely based in U.K. since 2001, after coming to London for her post-graduate studies. Her early childhood and the need adapt to different places has led to her method of creating works that are often fragile. Leaning, slanting, or mirroring, they are reflective of the adjustments made to new environments and surroundings.
Introduced to clay and ceramics whilst on an artists residency at Banff, Alberta, Canada (2016) she has since returned to it. Clay as a reciprocal material lends itself to a very intuitive method of working, allowing her to enter into a dialogue during the making process.
Her work has been exhibited in the U.K., and internationally.
Solo exhibitions include "The Magician" at Gloam Gallery, Sheffield (2021).
International group exhibitions include, most recently "Leeds Artists Show 2023", "Seeing Stars" (2022) at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds and "Photography is Magic", Aperture Foundation, New York, (2016) curated by Charlotte Cotton. She has taken part in international residencies, including the "New Materiality" residency, at the Banff, Centre for Arts, Alberta, Canada (2016).
She holds a Practice-based Phd (2007) from Goldsmiths College, University of London and an MA in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster, (2002). Her work is held in private art collections and the Paul D. Fleck Archive of Artists Books at the Banff Centre for Arts, Alberta, Canada.