The unspokenness of being between cultures — landscapes, identities — is what many in the Greek-Australian community carry, particularly those in their late 50s and 60s. Those that were called ‘wogs’ and not in jest. They are that nexus between cultures – the confluence and contrasts – at times abrasive, deep and unspoken.

It is this lived transference between and within that is at the centre of METAXI – Between, an exhibition at Damien Minton presents, Surry Hills, Sydney.

METAXI brings together two artists whose practices, though divergent, are rooted in the same dialogue between Greek and Australian lives. Sydney-based artist, sound designer, curator and arts manager, Panos Couros joined Northern Rivers visual artist and ceramicist Nicholas Comino in an exhibition that is intimate, ancient and very contemporary — a meditation on memory, landscape and cultural transportation, syncretism and dialogue.

Panos Couros (L) and Nicholas Comino (R) — *METAXI – Between*, Damien Minton presents, Surry Hills. Photo: Supplied

Born in Adelaide in 1960 to migrant parents, Couros has always been navigating the space between tradition and modernity, ritual and experimentation. The sound designer, composer and now, ceramicist, has a practice that over 30 years, spans theatre, film, installations and interactive works. His projects have been exhibited and performed nationally and internationally.

Couros has recently begun to embed transducers into ceramic vessels to create sound-emitting sculptures that merge tactile and auditory experience — works that invite audiences to not only see and touch, but to feel sound as it vibrates through form. It is a reflection of the meditative ceramic bowl playing of Buddhists, born in ancient Indian and transfered to Greek mystics and oracles. The sounds of ancient Greek ceramic born civilisation, all the way to the Bronze Age.

His work draws on deep wells of cultural memory. He melds traditional materials like terracotta with porcelain, and balances cultural tradition with contemporary design principles. Couros’s pieces create what he says is a “graceful harmony — many voices becoming a choir.”

He is inspired by the “intersection of the sacred and the secular,” as he says.

That narrative and dialogue runs through much of his body of work. Couros’s landmark 2005 sound installation Omphalos saw seven two-metre-high ceramic urns each emit a mystical song sung by seven women’s voices, surrounding a smaller urn from which the voice of Pythia spoke — a work that took four to five years to realise, including travelling to Delphi to record the sound of the Kastalian Spring.

Couros has recently begun to embed transducers into ceramic vessels to create sound-emitting sculptures that merge tactile and auditory experience — works that invite audiences not only to see and touch, but also to hear. Photo: Supplied

Joining him is Nicholas Comino, came to ceramics through a captivation with surface and symbol. Drawn to inscribing forms on bowl surfaces, Comino shares with Couros a deep reverence for the mysterious and ancient transformation of the kiln — the anticipation of what colour will finally be revealed after firing. For Comino, the mythological resonates deeply: he looks to Zeus breathing life into clay as a reminder that ceramics are an ever-evolving examination through lifetimes.

Together, these two artists become conduits for something ancient, deep and relevant now more than ever. A meditation and conversation through ceramics with our collective civilisations. Their work draws from Greek forms — their creative and cultural DNA. It is, in a way, a symbiotic relationship between humanity and earth – personal and universal.

METAXI – Between is open until Saturday 13 June at Damien Minton presents, 50 Buckingham Street, Surry Hills, Sydney.

Note: The exhibition closes this Saturday — visit before it ends.