Dimitra Charamandas's work explores the interchange between the physical body and natural landscapes. In her work, she foregrounds the sensory and the tactile using various visual languages to convey the tensions between vulnerability and force, and care and abuse. Her curiosity for the interactions of body, mind and psyche under the influence of sociopolitical and ecological realities forms the driving force behind her work. 

Charamandas's works explore liminality through their surreal resemblance to existing forms and shapes which appear isolated and detached from reality. Her paintings, sculptures and smaller mixed-media works approach geographical landscapes as a series of physical bodies: a jagged coastline path which traces the extremities of an island, a gentle slope that leads to a smoking crater, or a body of water that divides continents enabling or inhibiting the flow of human bodies. She interrogates the violence associated with otherwise beautiful topographies, aware of the invisible forces which have molded them. The Caldera or volcano crater recurs in her work as a symbol for forces that lay dormant until they reach boiling point, gradually allowing what is concealed to come to the surface.

Charamandas’s practice begins with a physical engagement through embodied outdoor research. Her palette reflects the organic and artificial colors of the landscapes through which she walks. Through slow travel and the observation of minute cyclical changes, the artist adopts an ecofeminist worldview which challenges a prevalent system of speed and productivity. In her artistic gatherings, centered around food and community exchange, she invokes a politics of care and a practice of ‘nurturing’, as well as rituals of collective and individual mourning. 

DIMITRA CHARAMANDAS (b. 1988) is Swiss-Greek artist working across painting, video, text, sculpture, and community gatherings. She completed an MA in Fine Arts at the Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel (2022) and previously studied at the Lucerne School of Art and Design and the Bern Academy of the Arts and the Lucerne University of Applies Sciences and Arts. 

Recent solo and duo presentations include Tides, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, (2023); Little inlets, Helvetia Art Foyer Basel (2023); Body of Water, Body of Stone, Gypsum Gallery, Cairo (2022); Do not take me for granite, Gallery Ann Mazzotti, Basel (2022); Bassa Marea, Museo Castello San Materno, Ascona (2022); Fragility, Haus der Kunst St. Josef, Solothurn (2021); and An der Kante, Salon Mondial der Christoph Merian Stiftung, Münchenstein, Basel (2018). Her work has been included in group shows at Kunsthaus Baselland, Muttens, Switzerland; Graphisches Kabinett Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Switzerland, Kunstmuseum Olten, Switzerland; Christoph Merian Stiftung, Münchenstein, Switzerland; Kunsthalle Luzern, Switzerland; Kunsthaus Grenchen, Switzerland; Project Space Sfera, Athens, Greece; Kasko Basel, Switzerland; and Forum Stadtpark Graz, Austria. She has organised food gatherings in Frankfurt, Athens, Lucerne and Basel and is co-founder and part of the collectives Espacio Pacha with Irene Trujillo and Quince Collective with Johanna Schaible. Charamandas is currently shortlisted for the 2024 Swiss Art Awards.

Charamandas’s work is held in institutional and private collections both locally and internationally. She lives and works between Solothurn, Basel and Athens.