Ground Matter
Melita Couta
23 January – 27 February 2026
Melita Couta’s practice unfolds in the interstitial space between memory and substance. In Ground Matter,
she investigates the notion of ground as a liminal space, a series of domestic geological strata, questioning
spaces of in-betweenness as carriers of meaning.
“Ground” is examined both horizontally and vertically—through land, soil, and material layers—and
metaphorically, as a space where opposing forces meet, negotiate, and coexist. Therefore, it becomes a site
of encounter between growth and resistance, vulnerability and endurance, human presence, and non-human
agency. Her sculptural assemblages reveal subsurface structures, including copper piping systems
associated with water circulation, exposing subterranean activity and suggesting bodily fluids.
Working with clay, earthen substances, and natural elements gathered from the Cypriot landscape—plants,
roots, and thorns, such as the Cyprus thistle, Couta performs a process of metamorphosis, transforming
organic matter into mineral-based forms through ceramic vitrification. The result is a fossil in reverse: rather
than unearthing an ancient form, she fabricates a future remnant.
Underlying these works is a sustained reflection on home. For Couta, home is not only architectural but
existential. Her sculptural maquette of a house, a replica of her grandparents’ home built in Nicosia in 1960,
functions as a metaphor for dwelling, memory, and presence. By deconstructing architectural elements, the
floor is imagined as tectonic plates diverging and converging, inviting the viewer to navigate through
unsettling fragments in the gallery space.
In Ground Matter, Couta evokes a sense of topos, experienced simultaneously through landscape, body, and
shelter. Her work probes the thresholds of coexistence between different life forms, weaving autobiographical
references into material processes to generate uneasy, fragile states of being.
Ultimately, Couta’s sculptures operate as uncanny object-situations, negotiating the porous threshold
between visible and unseen spaces: void and mass, function and rupture, revealing ground not as a stable
foundation but as an active field. Ground Matter becomes a quiet meditation on memory and material
persistence, situating human experience within the slow, enduring rhythms of deep geological time.
Melita Couta - Bio
Melita Couta (b. 1974, Cyprus) is a visual artist working across sculpture, installation, performance, and site-
responsive practices. Her work explores relationships between memory, material, and landscape, examining
how personal experience, ecological presence, and collective history are inscribed in place. Grounded in
long-term research and material engagement, her practice addresses absence, fragility, coexistence, and
layered narratives embedded within land. Working with clay, stones and plant matter collected through
walking, Couta engages performative practices and creates hollow ceramic vessels described as “fossils in
reverse.”
Couta has exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions, biennials, and triennials across Europe and
the wider Mediterranean.
www.melitacouta.com
Exhibition Opening: Friday 23 January 7 – 9.30 pm
Exhibition dates: 23 January – 27 February 2026
Korai Project Space
6-8 Adamantiou Korai str, 1016 Nicosia
Opening hours: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 16:00- 19:00 or by appointment.
Also check out other Exhibitions in Nicosia, Health & Wellness events in Nicosia, Arts events in Nicosia.
