All of these ceramic pieces were produced during my artistic residency in Bali at Gaya Ceramics, August–November 2025.
When I arrived in Bali, I immediately felt that mythology there works in a completely different way from the one I grew up with.
In Greek mythology, the focus is on individuality — on heroes, passions, and personal conflict. The gods behave like humans, full of desire and contradiction. Their stories expose what it means to be human in a very psychological sense.
In Balinese mythology, everything is connected. The divine is not up in the sky — it’s in the mountains, the rivers, the trees, the spirits that inhabit daily life. There isn’t a clear separation between gods and humans, or between the sacred and the ordinary.
The goal is not to overcome fate, but to maintain balance — between good and evil, creation and destruction, what can be seen and what remains unseen.
I found this idea incredibly powerful: that life itself is a constant act of rebalancing. The story of Barong and Rangda, for example, doesn’t end with one defeating the other — it ends with both forces coexisting.
Compared to the Greek sense of destiny — which often leads to tragedy or transformation — Balinese mythology is about harmony and restoration. It’s cyclical, ritual, embodied in dances, offerings, and ceremonies that keep the universe in motion.
Working there made me rethink how I tell stories through my work. In Greece, myths are told in words; in Bali, they are performed — sung, danced, offered. That sense of rhythm, repetition, and devotion became part of my way of thinking and making.
I think that’s what I brought back with me: the idea that storytelling doesn’t always mean explaining something.
Sometimes it means keeping it alive.
“I spent the first two weeks of my journey in Indonesia on the island of Flores.
My flight was cancelled after a triple eruption of Mount Lewotobi, spewing immense plumes of ash that drifted for miles.
I travelled overland for days, passing through villages of ikat weavers and their dances, while children launched magnificent kites into the sky — made indifferently from bright fabrics or from black plastic garbage bags.”
“Wayang Kulit shadow theatre”
“Cremation ceremony in Ubud“
“I saw a man inside the Barong“
“Goa Gajah, Ubud“
“That story where the elder brother dreamed of a woman of rare beauty wrapped in a serpent’s coils, and then his younger brother unveiled she was no dream at all.”
“In the game of pretending, we are in a dark room lit by fireflies.
Like Watugunung in the illustrated story of the book, we are not free but we feel enlightened.
And despite all the love, rivers run backward, the earth shakes, mountains split open, and chaos spreads across the land.
The young beautiful boy falls like a jackfruit that explodes after dropping from the tree.
Everything speaks of you.”
“Sometimes roosters wake me up at 2, when night is deepest.”
“During the 14th century, Gajah Mada, the prime minister of Majapahit, a powerful kingdom Of East Java, went to investigate Bali in preparation for its invasion. He heard that the Balinese king of Bedahul had the head of a pig and wanted to See for himself if this was true.“
"Jungle tiles"
"Lake Beratan temple"