Pastra Nausica (1921 - 2011)

Born in Kalamata in 1921, she took sculpture classes at the Sommerakademie (1957) of Salzburg under Ewald Mataré, and continued at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste (1957-1962) of Vienna under Fritz Wotruba. She also studied Sociology of Art at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (1967-1973) in Paris under Jean Cassou.
Her first solo exhibition of sculptures and drawings was hosted at the Wurthle Gallery of Vienna in 1963. Her early works, with clay as the main material, are anthropocentric and often inspired by the art of the Geometric period. Her subsequent works, made of plaster and bronze, are in a more abstract strain. In 1963 she settles in Paris and experiments with new materials like polyester. Moving in an abstract context, she goes into simplified forms and pure geometric shapes that make up her compositions/architectural propositions. Interested in the poetic potential of mathematical systems, she produces formal sequences based on the circle and the square as she explores the possibilities of these shapes’ intersections and interrelations. Her research, under the title Analogique, produced . Synectron, a new form for which the French State awarded her a patent in 1971. This was followed by the series Analogique 2 (1979-1982) and Analogique 3 (1982-1986). Gradually, with a clear culmination in the 1990s, her sculpture goes into more dynamic correlations that demonstrate the changeability of three-dimensional space. Throughout her work, the theoretical quests are translated into sculptural compositions based on mathematical laws.
She created works for public spaces and received various awards and distinctions. She presented her work in twenty solo exhibitions in Greece (since 1977) and abroad (Austria, France, Italy, Netherlands). She participated also in international group shows, among which the Salon de la Jeune Sculpture (1969-1972), Europalia, Belgium and the 1982 Biennale of Alexandria, where she won the 3rd award for sculpture, as well as the exhibition Metamorphoses of the Modern: the Greek experience at the National Gallery in 1992. A retrospective exhibition of sculptures, drawings and theoretical texts was held in 2014 at the State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, and then travelled to the Rhodes Museum of Modern-Greek Art. Works of hers can be found in public and private collections in Greece and abroad.