Dimitra Siaterli

Dimitra Siaterli was born in Argos, in the Peloponnese, in 1952. From 1971 to 1977 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, graduating in painting in 1975 and completing studies in decoration there in 1977. Between 1975 and 1977 a grant from EOMMEX, the Greek organisation for small enterprises and handicraft, supported her work on new printmaking techniques, and she concentrated on copperplate engraving. In the same years she worked in the studio of the printmaker Pino Pandolfini, who later became her husband.

In 1977 she returned to Greece and founded the Athens Printmaking Centre with Pandolfini. From 1983 she created interventions in space: constructions, sculptures and performances combined with sound and poetry. In 1989 she was a founding member of the Printmaking Centre group, and from 1991 she began producing artist’s publications and book illustrations. She taught printmaking and printed art at the University of Western Macedonia from 2010 to 2016. She is a member of the Greek Printmakers’ Association, and the Prefecture of Argolida awarded her its Culture Prize in 2004 and again in 2008. Her works are in collections including the National Gallery and the City of Athens Gallery.

Siaterli works across printmaking, installation and flat sculpture, cutting and engraving her plates in wood, zinc, copper, iron and linoleum. In a 2026 interview with CultureNow she described two stages: first a long, experimental relationship with the plate; then, with the prints, a new relationship with colour, paper and printing. For this reason she presents the plate and its print as equals, and many plates appear as independent works. Πιθανές Νήσοι (Possible Islands), a colour etching of 1991, is one of her prints.

The spider’s web has run through her work since 1983. She has treated it as the myth of Arachne challenging Athena, as a trap, a city plan and a network of solidarity, choosing ropes, sewing thread, leather, fabric or wire to suit each idea. Her 1995 solo exhibition at Gallery 7 in Athens took its title from a phrase she attributes to Plato: Ιστός ψυχοδιάβατος πλεκτάνην εαυτώ δαιδαλεύεται. Two small copperplate engravings from that year, Φιάλη κλειστή (Closed Bottle) and Φιάλη ανοιχτή (Open Bottle), are in the Sotiris Felios Collection. Her 2026 retrospective Συνεκτικά Δίκτυα (Cohesive Networks) at the City of Athens Gallery, curated by Vasia Magoula, included a web of fine copper threads and Σκιές (Shadows), a row of perforated wooden figures of children and teenagers.

Siaterli’s career joins Greek printmaking to the life of a workshop. The Athens Printmaking Centre, which she co-founded in 1977, continues as a non-profit company with its own exhibition space, ETCH INK. For a first activity, open the Felios Collection page for Φιάλη κλειστή (Closed Bottle), a 1995 copperplate engraving only 19 × 6 cm. Name three things in Greek: η μήτρα (the plate), το τύπωμα (the print), το χαρτί (the paper). Then make two original sentences with πρώτα and μετά: Πρώτα δουλεύει τη μήτρα. Μετά έρχεται το τύπωμα. (First she works on the plate. Then comes the print.) These practice sentences follow her general description of printmaking, not a documented account of how this particular print was made.

• In Greek, μήτρα means both a printing plate and a womb, which gives her image of the plate as a mother its double sense.
• She often exhibits a printing plate beside its print as a work of equal value.
• Her two Φιάλη engravings in the Felios Collection measure only 19 × 6 cm each.
• Her 2026 exhibition at the City of Athens Gallery covered work from the 1980s to the present.