K.Tsebeli

My name is Katerina Tsembeli. I was born in Athens and have lived in Chania since 1992. I studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts and earned an MSc in Graphic Arts & Multimedia; my thesis ‘The Apollonian and the Dionysiac in the work of Edward Hopper’ proved pivotal to my later work.

I taught Visual Arts, Drawing, and Art History in secondary education.

Since 2022 I have been retired and able to devote my time to research, writing, art, and actions. My ultimate goal is, as much as possible, to help bridge the Primordial Rupture (¥) between humanity and nature, and between mind (where ideas appear eternal and unchanging) and body (which declines, dies, decomposes, and diffuses).

I am a multimedia artist and theorist based in Chania, Crete. Working with painting, installations, and bioart, I reinterpret myths and emblematic narratives through a symbolic cosmology that explores matter and the sacred cycle of renewal.

For me, art is not merely representation — it is activism, ritual, and philosophical inquiry. My work challenges the rigid boundaries between culture and biology, urging a re-evaluation of the taboos that shape our societies and of the cycles that sustain life.

I am a mother of a large family and our firstborn daughter has a severe disability. A few months before Covid-19 struck, we moved next to our villa. During the lockdown we planted vegetables and bought ten chicks to gain a measure of self-sufficiency.

Our first attempts at gardening failed due to barren soil. I researched many methods. Eventually I embraced Dr. Elaine Ingham’s approach focusing on the soil food web, that is, enriching the soil with beneficial microorganisms. So I bought some red worms and multiplied them into a large colony.

I realized the earth is barren because we discard all our ‘waste’ and return nothing to the soil. We prefer to flush it, burn it, or bag it and send it away. Thus we leave microorganisms without food and, unknowingly, we have turned soil into sterile dust. Although most of us are aware of ecological crises and there are many solutions, why don’t we implement them decisively?

My theory began with this question.

This new body of work and my symbolic system re-examines our estrangement from ecological cycles and explores the sacred within materiality and decay. Working with installations, painting, rituals, and theoretical texts, I create experiences that honor both the beauty and the difficulty of our participation in life’s processes.

It includes symbols such as ⦳ (Cycle of Life), |〄| (Labyrinth of Taboos), ↻ (Syntropy), and ۝ (Material Divinity). These glyphs, like all symbols, constitute an extra-linguistic key to understanding.

In the composite installation Venus Incarnis: Seeds of Material Divinity, I appropriated the archetype of the goddess of fertility—not as a distant idol, but as an active, earthy presence rooted in the Cycle of Life. As I worked with clay, it evolved from Venus Caganer to Venus Incarnis, a symbolic presence of Material Divinity.

Venus Incarnis is a manifesto for wholeness and reconciliation. Its message is that true fullness and deep erotic connection—with ourselves, others, and the planet—require the full, unconditional acceptance of our embodied reality. This includes embracing all aspects of existence: birth, growth, but also decomposition. The installation invites us to recognize the ‘Material Divinity’ inherent in every cycle of life, to dismantle the dualisms that estrange us, and to choose the ‘Re-membering’ of Eden as an active, experiential, and collective practice.