Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva is a Macedonian artist living & working in the UK. She works across varied media of sculpture, installation and site-responsive works that explore, uncover and transform hidden systems and liminal spaces within nature, architecture, and the human body. She is interested in the areas of life that people find hard to talk about - death, disease, and religion to name recent examples. This is both her natural curiosity & reflects growing up in a communist country (Yugoslavia) where many topics were forbidden. Freedom of expression, asking difficult questions, using difficult materials, revealing the hidden and looking behind and below are themes that inform much of her work. Hadzi-Vasileva's choice of materials range from the extraordinary to the ordinary and the ephemeral or discarded to the highly precious; this has included both organic materials, animal membranes and precious metals, such as caul fat & gold leaf.
Central to her practice is a response to the particularities of place, its history, locale, environment and communities. Elpida often works in collaboration with organisations from the RSPB, the Forestry Commission to The Vatican, in Cathedral settings to National Trust properties as well as contemporary visual arts organisations such as National Gallery of Macedonia to the Djanogly Gallery in the UK. Unusual natural materials are used to critically consider the fragility of nature and make the viewer think, respond and react. Hadzi-Vasileva is interested in how the exchange of knowledge can develop through collaborative working and in the contexts of landscape, heritage, science and community as offered by each location.
The tree works she creates celebrate the cycle of growth and decay, utilising fallen trees which otherwise break down and disappear unnoticed. Fallen trees have their roots cleaned, remodelled and gilded and are installed inverted, with roots uppermost. The work highlights the sensitive balance at play between present, past, and future through conservation. In addition to being visually striking, the works also deepen engagement with and appreciation of the historical and cultural heritage of a place. Co-creation with local audiences & people from other professions has informed some of the tree works.
Hadzi-Vasileva was commissioned by the Vatican for the Pavilion of the Holy See, at the 56th International Art Exhibition with her work Haruspex (2015) and represented the country of her birth, Macedonia, at the 55th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, with Silentio Pathologia (2013). In 2023 she was awarded a MacDowell fellowship with an Anne Stark Locher & Kurt Locher Fellowship. Other awards include: Wellcome Trust, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Arts Council England, Ministry of Culture of Macedonia. She has been commissioned by a variety of public & private spaces, including Thirsk Hall Sculpture Garden; Preston Park, Brighton; The University of Nottingham; National Gallery of Macedonia; Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham; Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London; Nymans Gardens; Fabrica Gallery, Brighton; Mottisfont Abbey, Romsey; Pied à Terre, London; Gloucester Cathedral, Bennachie, Aberdeenshire; L'H du Siège, France & Kilmainham Gaol Museum, Ireland. Permanent commissions can be visited at Preston Park, The University of Nottingham and Kilmardinny House. Her artworks are in public collections including Luxelakes a4 Museums, Chengdu, China; The Vatican; Soho House; Pooseum, Australia; Office of Public Works, Dublin, Ireland; Križanke, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Pied à Terre, London; South Lodge Hotel, Horsham; Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, Napoli, Italy; Osten, Skopje, Macedonia; MIMA, Middlesbrough and New Hall Art Collection, Cambridge and private collections around the world.