Photo by Yiorgos Vellis

Pavlina Vagioni (pronounced Vayoní; b. 1975, Athens, Greece) is a Houston-based interdisciplinary artist whose work brings classical mythology into dialogue with contemporary life. Working across sculpture, painting, sound, mixed media and digital art, she creates multisensory installations that draw on ancient narratives to consider enduring questions around protection and violence, transformation and identity, intimacy and conflict.

Vagioni’s multicultural, multilingual and diasporic experience informs her approach to mythology as something living rather than fixed in the past. Recent bodies of work, including Medusa, Proteus and Chiron, reinterpret myth through contemporary materials, technologies and systems of knowledge. Her process brings together etymology, mathematics, sound and material research, connecting ancient narratives with present-day questions and experiences.

Vagioni has presented solo exhibitions at The Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis, IN; The Opening Gallery, New York, NY; Carillon Gallery, Fort Worth, TX; TANK Space, Houston, TX; and Kappatos Gallery, Athens, Greece. Her work has also been exhibited at the Byzantine Museum, the Hellenic American Union, and the City of Athens Arts Center. Public commissions include a large-scale installation comprising more than 2,000 suspended laser-cut acrylic elements for Houston’s ION Building.

Her work is held in the permanent collection of MOMus–Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, Greece, and has received the Juror’s Award from Lawndale Art Center in Houston. Her development in new materials and fabrication technologies has been supported by a workshop scholarship at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado and a residency at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Vagioni studied painting, sculpture and scenography at the Athens School of Fine Arts, graduating with honors at master’s level in 2016. More than a decade of training as a classical soprano, alongside studies in piano, music theory and composition, continues to inform the sonic and interdisciplinary dimensions of her work. She is currently presenting Oikeiōsis, a solo exhibition with the Hellenic Diaspora Foundation in Venice during the 61st Biennale.