Lydia Dambassina
Artist
Lydia Dambassina is a visual artist born in Thessaloniki (Greece). She lives in Keramikos (Athens), Kea island and Paris. At the age of fifteen, she moved to France (Lyon) then studied art at the School of Fine Arts of Grenoble, and Psychopathology and Pedagogy at the Universities Paris V and Grenoble. Lydia Dambassina has been working with the obsessive concern about climate change since 1976. For years, she lived in an old farm she renovated herself, cultivating the yard and working: and indeed, all of her work has in a way or another, as her life, an ecological anchorage. Much of her art deals with economic inequalities and religious absurdities.
“Few artists have been as involved for so many years in combining humanist values, the preservation of nature and the fight against economical inequalities in both art and life, notwithstanding a special interest for time, repetition and decay – that are obviously also linked to the question of ecology. Conservation is very present in the choice of material – found objects, mattresses, animal skins or skulls, plants, seeds, bread, all poetically stand for transformation of decay into respect” (written by Barbara Polla). Lydia Dambassina’s work has been shown in many museums worldwide. She recently participated in the exhibition “The Green Path” in Perama (2021, Museum Alleias) and in Paul Ardenne’s exhibition ”Forest’s King” (2022, Museum of the Water, France).