Vasilis Vasili is a Greek-Canadian sculptor based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who also maintains a studio in Athens, Greece. His work explores the concepts of passage, memory, shelter, and belonging through forms that move between sculpture, architecture, and landscape. Working primarily in marble, granite, and other stone, he creates works that invite both physical and contemplative engagement.
He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Athens, Greece, and received his B.A. in 1996. He continued his education in the United States, earning an M.F.A. from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia in 2001. During this period, he was awarded scholarships from the Greek Foundation of State Scholarships, the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, and the Gerondelis Foundation.
Vasili has extensive teaching experience in both North America and Greece. In 2001–2002, he served as a Visiting Artist at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. After returning to Greece, from 2004 to 2013, he taught as a Laboratory Associate at the University of West Attica in Athens. From 2006 to 2008, he also served as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Western Macedonia in Florina, contributing to the development of artistic practice, material understanding, and interdisciplinary approaches to art and design.
Since the mid-1990s, he has developed an extensive body of work in public space through international sculpture symposia, biennales, and exhibitions. His sculptures have been installed across Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East, and he has presented solo exhibitions in Frankfurt, Philadelphia, and Athens, with his latest exhibition in Saranda, Albania. International public spaces, museums, and private collections hold his work, reflecting a sustained engagement with sculpture as a spatial and cultural presence.
ARTISTIC APPROACH
Vasilis Vasili’s work is driven by themes of entrapment, restriction, separation, and passage, which he employs as a means of reflecting on the human condition. Through forms that move between sculpture and architecture, he creates thresholds that connect the here and now with what lies beyond, inviting the viewer to encounter them both visually and bodily.
Rooted in the cultural and architectural traditions of Greece, particularly Epirus, his work also draws inspiration from spaces of spiritual significance and from structures associated with defense, shelter, and protection. Ancient tombs are a particularly important point of reference, as they offer a powerful way of understanding the values, fears, and aspirations of the societies to which they belong.
The renowned art historian Katerina Koskina writes about his work:
“Vasilis’ practice is based on an experiential yet deeply contemplative engagement with stone, marble, granite, and other durable materials characterized by geological duration, weight, and strength. In his hands, these materials acquire plasticity, fragility, and permeability. His sculptures do not function simply as striking objects for public or indoor spaces.
Regardless of their dimensions, they are anti-objects, functioning primarily as occasions for reflection on the eternal journey of humanity and, more specifically, on the transition from one place to another, from one state of existence to the next. They tell stories of passages, thresholds, and bridges. They become markers of spaces of passage between the external landscape and internal experience. The openings, cavities, and voids are not merely applications of the basic rules of sculpture; rather than focusing on absence, they evoke places of life, where temporality, concentration, and silence are sought.”
