ABOUT MARIA

Born in Greece and living in London and Greece, Maria Bacha is currently graduating (‘25), from her two year MFA Arts and Humanities program at the Royal College of Art.

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ARTIST STATEMENT—2025

My work explores ancestral memory and ecological grief through an abstract, process-based practice shaped by water, sound, and ritual. Rooted in personal experience, my work addresses the emotional and environmental residues we carry—across generations, across geographies—and seeks gestures of care, clarity, and reconnection.

This body of work is guided by the concept of liquid memory. Since my move to London, each day, while walking by the Thames near Battersea Bridge, I would stop, listen, and observe. The river became a companion and a mirror—a source of discomfort, memory, and belonging. I began collecting water from the Thames and placing it directly onto canvas. The pollution, heaviness, and resistance of the material led me to respond with gestures of protection: layers of soy wax, blue pigment, and intuitive brushwork.

Blue holds a central role in my work. Rooted in ancient Greek symbolism and personal mythology, it represents the protective, transformative, and sacred. Through this color, I seek to soften inherited pain and create openings for renewal.

The work is a personal offering: to my mother, to the waters I return to, and to the cycles of harm I long to break. The pieces form a quiet ecology of healing; each element is part of a ritual, a movement toward healing through attention, presence, and continuity.

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BIO

Maria earned her BA in Studio Arts from the University of La Verne, California, then she studied next to the Greek painter Michalis Veloudios, attended courses at RISD and MOMA, and was the Head Art Teacher for ten years at the Hadzivei Elementary School. She illustrated books for the Greek public school. She is also a member of the Greek Chamber of Fine Arts. The Greek Ministry of Culture collected her artwork in 2020 and to date, her works have been shown at exhibitions and art fairs in Greece, London and Los Angeles.