Stella Baraklianou is an internationally exhibiting artist who brings together the materials and processes of sculpture, ceramics, textiles, photography and writing. She creates site-specific immersive installations that reflect the current post-digital era.
Born in Greece and brought up in Sydney, Australia, Baraklianou's practice is influenced by her personal experiences of travel and migration, and is often layered with multiple cultural references.
Currently working with clay and sculpture, she is interested in merging narratives of the present with a range of historical artefacts, both analogue and digital.
Employing humour and dark narratives, her work often evokes stories of women as a means to inhabit fictional characters.
In her coiled vases in particular, the forms and shapes of the classical inspired Grecian amphoras, take a new direction, revealing a sense of bewilderment, reflecting a senseless and intrusive way of living. The interrupted time that requires the making of each ceramic vessel, is left visible on the marks and the textures of the sculptures. Raw, organic shapes are left unrefined. The final pieces pose as a comment on the ephemerality and fragmented nature of our times.
Her work has been shortlisted for the Prix Contemporain Ceramique, Lieux Commune, Chaudfontaine, Belgium (2024) and is held in private and public collections in the U.K. and internationally. She is a member of the PSSA Sculpture Association (2023) & has been part of the Yorkshire Sculpture Network (2022) and STEAMHouse, Birmingham (2021–22).
She is the recipient of a Henry Moore Foundation Artists Award (2025), DYCP funding from the Arts Council, England (2023) as well as other artists grants (A–N Artists Information Society, 2021).
Recently she was the Professional Residency at Clay City artists' residency in Dublin, Ireland (2025). Other international residencies include: Banff Centre for Arts, Banff, Alberta, Canada (2016) as well as a self-funded residency, Los Angeles, California (2007–08).
Stella holds a practice-based PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London (2007) and an MA in Photographic Studies, University of Westminster (2002). She has held positions as Senior Lecturer in Art and Design in UK institutions (University of Huddersfield, 2012–2023) and has taught as a Lecturer at various higher education institutions in the U.K. and abroad, including OTIS College of Art and Design, in Los Angeles, California.
"My method is based on intuition and using emotions when working with clay. 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. Each vase is created organically and patiently, out of layers of coils."
Link to full CV