Stepping into the Steps Gallery, you are transported into a different world—one shaped by memory, imagination, and cultural layering. The Antipodean Palette exhibition, now in its fifteenth year, continues to provide an essential platform for Greek-Australian visual artists, showcasing a broad range of practices and perspectives.
Organised by the Greek-Australian Cultural League (GACL), the 2025 edition runs from 12–22 June at Melbourne’s Steps Gallery, with seventeen artists from across Australia participating. The exhibition, run through an open call, invites artists of Greek heritage to respond freely to a theme, allowing for a unique dialogue between personal heritage, cultural identity, and contemporary artistic expression.
Since its establishment in 2010, Antipodean Palette has been a democratic and community-driven event, reflecting GACL’s longstanding commitment—since its founding in 1970—to nurturing Hellenic culture in Australia. The creation of a visual arts platform—unbound by curatorial gatekeeping—has enabled a new generation of Greek-Australian artists to share space, experiment, and reflect on their evolving identities.
Unlike institutionally curated exhibitions, Antipodean Palette is open to all artists of Greek descent. This accessibility fosters an unfiltered exchange of ideas and approaches, where works of varying styles—abstract, representational, textile, photographic, and sculptural—coexist and converse. The result is a snapshot of artistic thought from across the diaspora, enriched by memory, geography, and personal narrative.
Across the years, the exhibition has highlighted many artists and practices. The 2014 edition featured twelve artists working across painting, printmaking, and engraving, and included a poetry afternoon and musical performance. In 2015, the show expanded with a public opening by the Victorian Minister for the Arts. The 2017 and 2018 editions welcomed emerging and established voices and introduced digital art and experimental forms, with a focus on diasporic experience. The 2018 People’s Choice Award recognised the emotive works of Kyriaki (Kerrie Theodorikakos), while group exhibits highlighted contributions by Christina Alonefti, Olga Antoniadis, and Michael Winters.
Kerrie Theodorikakos: Tracing Memory Through Bronze and Thread
This year, Theodorikakos returns with Celestial Threads, a striking series of nine digitally manipulated images drawn from her in-progress lost-wax bronze casting sculptures. “The images capture the stage after the bronze pour is complete,” she explains, “when I have dremelled off the sprues affixed to the cast, but before sandblasting and refining the cast’s surface.” She describes the work as a celebration of “the materiality of bronze, highlighting not only its malleability but also its potential for future form.”
This “future form” emerges in the photographs as woven fragments—“columns, flora, and string to evoke a quiet archaeology of memory.” These poetic compositions reflect her core themes of transformation and renewal: “Ruins of the past, both architectural and ancestral, become fertile ground where lost histories and knowledge begin to stir and re-emerge. Through acts of binding and growth, the piece gestures toward renewal: what was once buried now finds form in delicate threads and blooming life.”
The series is deeply informed by her personal connection to classical heritage and her own journey of cultural discovery. “I am inspired by a love of exploring the lost art practices of my ancestors and reviving forgotten trades, such as lost-wax bronze casting,” she says. “This piece draws from my experiences with the teachings of ancient history in both Australian schools and Greek school, as well as my travels to Greece, particularly my search for bronze artworks in museums across the country.”
The visual style—delicate, hazy, layered—is deliberate. “I chose to digitally manipulate these images so they appear to be fading away, emulating how photos of loved ones or places of history can fade with time.” This fading mirrors not just memory, but the disappearance of traditional crafts in a mass-produced world. “It reflects the gradual loss of ancient trades, like bronze casting, as artisans disappear and mass-industrial manufacturing prevails, cutting away the soul that once gave life to these practices, people, and places.”
For Theodorikakos, the value lies not in the finished object, but in the creative process. “This series highlights the process through which a final artwork comes to fruition,” she says. “Like much of my work, it places value on the transitional spaces of time and process rather than the final product—as if capturing polaroids of my own Ithaca.”
Her work rarely features direct figurative representation. Instead, she says, “I use architectural, floral, and textile motifs to evoke the connections they [my ancestors] have built and that continue to quietly whisper to me.” This subtle symbolism aligns with her practice as an art therapist. “My therapeutic insight supports me in creating works that capture the human experience, often reflecting my own journey of identity growth as a Greek Australian who has called two countries, inhabited by many cultures, home.”
Her approach, she says, is not to shock but to connect. “My therapeutic language seeks to ignite storytelling and connection through sharing art that contains recognisable imagery—offering a mirror for others to see what they are ready to see, and to ask themselves whether their story of coming into being connects in some way to mine.”
Theodorikakos continues to explore the idea of bridging past and future: “The more I unpack my past, particularly the factors that continue to influence my personal journey and the countries I call home, the more I learn about my own human experience and that of others. This work reflects that ongoing exploration—bridging where I came from with where I am going.”
Since receiving the People’s Choice Award in 2018, her work has continued to evolve and attract new audiences. “The award gave me greater exposure and sparked more collaborative opportunities and conversations within the Greek-Australian community,” she reflects. “But I believe that the more I actively seek out these opportunities and celebrate the voices and craft of others in the community, the more connections are formed—both within the community and beyond.”
Asked what she hopes audiences take away from her work, Theodorikakos replies with quiet clarity: “I would be honoured if viewers simply take a moment to hold space and witness my work. If I were to extend my hope beyond that, it would be that they might see a speck of my human experience, and perhaps a shadow of their own—that we could one day connect over, should we meet in person.”
Looking ahead, she is drawn to new directions: “I’m interested in further developing my photographic artistic language to document and celebrate in-process art making, which, many times, is more impactful to me as an artist than the finished product. I’m also keen to expand my collage practice, as it allows me to combine fragments of the past, present, and emerging future without the hard lines of time being visible. This speaks to the human experience, ever evolving, yet shaped in the here and now, as well as in what is to come, by fragments of the past.”
The COVID‑19 pandemic in 2020 prompted an online exhibition, In Isolation, capturing themes of solitude and resilience. The 2021 edition embraced the bicentenary of Greek Independence with the theme Metamorphosis, transforming Melbourne’s city spaces into public galleries through photographic installations. In 2022, the Art Trail brought the exhibition into shopfronts across Moreland and Brunswick, reflecting community life and urban visibility.
This year’s participants continue the legacy with new reflections on identity, belonging, and cultural hybridity. Alongside Theodorikakos’s Celestial Threads, Victoria Floratos presents delicate photo-sculptural works using eggshells to explore memory and vulnerability, while Rita Macarounas documents migrant life in Darwin through a compelling photographic-textile series. Together, the works span personal histories and collective experience—capturing everyday beauty, silent struggle, and symbolic transformation.
While much of the exhibition’s strength lies in its diversity, it also thrives as a social space. The GACL complements the visual presentation with bilingual events: poetry readings, music nights, and book launches that foster dialogue between generations and cultural forms. Antipodean Palette is not simply a gallery show—it is an active site of community engagement and cultural affirmation.
Investing in Visibility: The Case for Government Funding
As the exhibition enters its fifteenth year, questions of sustainability and future direction are increasingly urgent. To date, it has largely relied on volunteer effort and minimal funding. Modest institutional support could significantly expand its impact—through touring editions, artist talks, mentorship programs, and archival projects.
However, to truly sustain and grow this important platform, dedicated government funding is essential—particularly at a time when substantial public funds are routinely directed toward Greek organisations that contribute little or nothing to the advancement of visual arts. Supporting this exhibition would be a meaningful investment in a space that remains vital for diaspora voices and underrepresented artistic communities.
At a time when many multicultural narratives remain underrepresented in the national arts landscape, Antipodean Palette remains a rare space of visibility, generosity, and resilience. Its continued existence relies not only on the passion of its organisers, but on broader recognition from arts funding bodies, cultural institutions, and the wider public.
The Greek-Australian story is not fixed. It is layered, complex, and constantly renewed through artistic practice. With each annual edition, Antipodean Palette reminds us that identity is not merely remembered—it is made, remade, and shared. The future of Greek-Australian art, as this exhibition demonstrates, is already here—and it’s speaking with many voices.
Exhibition Details
Title: Antipodean Palette 2025
Venue: Steps Gallery, 62 Lygon Street, Carlton, Melbourne
Dates: 12–22 June 2025
Opening Hours: 10:00am – 4:00pm daily
Presented by: Greek-Australian Cultural League
Admission: Free
