Callisto is an artist working with indoor and outdoor installations, co-creation projects, painting, drawing and 3D work.

She came to Sun Pier House having been awarded the first Artist Studio Bursary in March 2023 and we are thrilled she decided to stay as a resident artist in Studio 0A.

Coming from a career in translation and interpretation, as well as completing studies up to PhD level in philosophy, exploring concepts and ideas features heavily in her work. However, the exploration of relationships and ideas actually stems from her lived experience as an AuDHD woman growing up and adapting to the world. Both the academic and artistic expressions of this exploration grew out of that.

“I explore the things that I don’t yet fully understand.

Having lived in both the East and the West, and never knowing where I came from has planted in me a lasting urge to seek and create a sense of home, and to explore family and history.”

In place of a strong sense of belonging, she has developed a deep attachment to things with a sense of age and history, especially ephemera and everyday objects. As a result, vintage items appear in both her artwork and her micro-business dealing in crockery, glassware and ephemera such as paper and material.

One constant in her life has been creativity itself:

“I consider myself lucky in that I can’t really say when art entered my life. It was always there My most abundant playthings as a child were paper, pencils, paints and my grandad was a self-taught and dedicated creative soul. As the ideal state of creativity is play, it was an ideal start for me that most of my play as a child was creative in nature. I’m able to appreciate that now, with a studio half full of my grandad’s remaining art supplies, taking that sense of child-like play into creating art as a more serious venture.”

In June 2023, Callisto completed the co-created public installation Sightings of Home as a part of the Gravesham Fringe Festival. Her 2D work appears in local shows and can be viewed on her Instagram and upcoming website.

INSTAGRAM: @callisto_sph