Interview: Vasso Triga – Greece Through the Eyes of an Artist
- Victoria Di Cala (BC)
- Aug 10
- 3 min read
Painter and ceramic artist Vasso Triga reflects, in this exclusive interview, on creativity, memory, and the sources of inspiration that shape her work.
For more than twenty years, painter and ceramic artist Vasso Triga has been developing a body of work in which light, memory, and the colours of Greece engage in dialogue with a deeply contemporary artistic language. Born in Athens in 1966, she now divides her time between Greece and Luxembourg. In this exclusive interview, she looks back on her journey, her deep attachment to her roots, and the ways in which her cultural heritage continues to shape her work.
For Vasso Triga, creativity was not a calling that suddenly emerged later in life. It seems to have always been there. As a child, her teachers noticed her talent for drawing and encouraged her to take part in artistic projects. Yet her path initially took her in a different direction. She studied law in Athens, started a family, and embarked on a career in the legal field. Art, however, never stopped accompanying her.
“Even my law textbooks and notes were filled with sketches and drawings. It was probably already a sign of the path I was destined to follow.”
At the end of the 1990s, she began to develop her painting practice more deeply before exhibiting in Athens, with the support of several established artists. In 2003, she decided to devote herself entirely to her art. Since 2016, ceramics have enriched her artistic universe, naturally extending her exploration of materials, forms, and colour.
Although her transition from law to art might appear to represent a radical break, Vasso Triga sees it instead as a continuation. Beneath these two disciplines, she finds the same pursuit of balance, structure, and meaning. Her creative process always begins with emotion, before giving way to a demanding practice grounded in research, exploration, and experimentation.
Among the elements that run throughout her work, blue holds a particularly distinctive place. Present in both her paintings and ceramics, it goes far beyond being simply a colour, becoming a true means of expressing emotion. At times soothing, at times captivating, it has accompanied her way of seeing the world for as long as she can remember.
“For me, blue contains several states at once: curiosity, purity, serenity, refuge, fascination, and profound emotion. It is a colour capable of suspending time.”
Dive II, Ceramic Vase. ©Katoufas Brothers Beings, Ceramic Vase. ©Katoufas Brothers Askos, Ceramic Vase. ©Katoufas Brothers Idea, Ceramic Vase. ©Katoufas Brothers Dive I, Ceramic Vase. ©Katoufas Brothers
A selection of ceramic vases by ©Vasso Triga.
It is impossible to speak about Vasso Triga’s work without speaking of Greece. Far more than a landscape, her homeland is a constant presence in her imagination. The light of the Aegean Sea, the brilliant white of the islands, the silvery green of the olive trees, as well as the symbols of Greek civilisation, continually nourish her inspiration. Yet this memory is never approached through nostalgia. Instead, it becomes a living material that engages in dialogue with the present.
For the artist, tradition and contemporary creation are not opposites. They enrich one another, making it possible to create work that is resolutely contemporary without severing its connection to its origins.
“Modernity cannot exist without the tradition upon which it is built. Our origins and our memory contain an inexhaustible reservoir of expression that continues to nourish contemporary creation.”
This reflection extends beyond the artistic sphere. In her view, Greece continues to evolve without ever turning its back on its heritage. What matters is not to look solely towards the past, but to continue creating in the present, allowing this memory to live on through new forms.
When asked to sum up Greece in a single image, Vasso Triga chooses that of a white rock resting on the sea.
“A white rock that acts as a catalyst. When it falls into the sea, it stirs up foam and waves without ever sinking. It remains on the surface, creating a fertile space for free spirits, like birds that pause there for a moment on their journey, somewhere between departure and return.”
This metaphor alone encapsulates her vision of creation: deeply rooted, yet always open to movement, encounter, and transmission.
Through her paintings and ceramics, Vasso Triga thus creates a body of work in which Mediterranean light engages in dialogue with memory, where origins nourish the present, and where each creation invites us to see Greece not as a fixed inheritance, but as a source of inspiration that remains endlessly alive.
