Artist Statement

My work begins with relationship, an ongoing relationship with the more-than-human world. I am a multidisciplinary artist, and my practice lives at the intersection of art, ecology, and herbalism.

To work with plants is to practice interbeing. Every leaf, root, and petal leaves an imprint, not only on paper or cloth, but in the body, the heart, and the imagination. My practice is a slow conversation, an attunement to the subtle exchanges that occur when we listen deeply. I work with materials that are local, ephemeral, foraged, or grown, carrying the memory and spirit of their places of origin.

Over time, I’ve developed Art that Breathes—a process-based, relational methodology grounded in sensory attention, reciprocity, and co-creation with healing plants. This work resists control; it favors emergence. It is about impressions, how we are shaped by land, weather, season, and the beings we live alongside.

My work also extends into the social realm through workshops, gatherings, writing, ceremony, and shared meals. I’m interested in how art cultivates reflection, wonder, and tenderness, inviting people back into relationship with the living world. Time at Standing Rock in 2016 taught me the difference between calling people out and calling them in, and that ethic continues to guide how I create and how I teach.

I grew up in a Greek immigrant family in London, shaped by a culture where plants are part of daily life, where food, medicine, ritual, and landscape are deeply intertwined. Growing up slightly outside the dominant culture, I learned to find belonging not in institutions, but in the living world itself, Gaia as a wider home.

I draw inspiration from those who blurred the boundaries between science, spirit, and imagination. As an immigrant in rural Massachusetts and a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I carry an embodied understanding of how we are changed by place, encounter, and one another.

In this moment, when the world feels fractured and grieving, I’m drawn to work that stays in relationship—attentive to the small, living exchanges that still surround us. Art that Breathes is simply a way of making that relationship visible.

Learn more about Tony(a) here.