Based in Athens, visual artist Natalia Manta moves between sculpture, material experimentation and immersive forms of image-making.

Her practice is rooted in an interest in how materials can transform, react and acquire new meanings, bringing together elements as diverse as metal, clay, light-sensitive chemicals and video projection.

Manta studied Sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts, where she completed both her undergraduate studies and a Master’s in Fine Arts. Her relationship with the institution continued beyond her studies, as she taught sculpture there from 2017 to 2020.

Her work is characterised by an openness to collaboration and an instinct to cross disciplinary boundaries. Rather than treating sculpture as an isolated medium, Manta allows it to intersect with sound, performance, theatre and visual art, creating spaces where different artistic languages can coexist.

Her exhibitions have taken her from Greece to international platforms, including the Korean International Ceramic Biennale, the Larnaca Biennale, Baton Rouge Gallery in the United States and numerous independent and institutional venues across Athens and elsewhere in Greece. Her participation in exhibitions such as Handmade: On the Social Dimension of Craft, RESTART, Limitless Limits and Gender Melancholia reflects the breadth of her practice and her engagement with contemporary questions surrounding materiality, identity and transformation.

In 2022, Manta was awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS, recognising her contribution to Greece’s contemporary artistic landscape.

What emerges across Manta’s work is a fascination with possibility: the potential of an object to shift its character, of a material to behave unexpectedly, and of sculpture to extend beyond physical form.