Ghosts, by Greek Australian artist Tashi Columbro, traces transmissions of memory across generations. Her practice draws from intimate family histories, particularly the lived experiences of her Yiayia, whose stories of love, joy, war, migration, and survival form the foundation of this recent body of work.

“A year ago, my yiayia passed away. I found myself wanting to hold onto the stories she used to share with us over coffee, stories so different from my own life that they felt as though they belonged to another world. She spoke of her gypsy best friend, stealing food from farms, dancing outside the taverna, and taking the bus to her wedding. Alongside these joyful memories were stories of fear and loss: of war, Nazis, and the hardships that led her to leave Greece for Australia, where she then faced loneliness and racism in an unfamiliar country.”

It is the conflictual experience of joy and suffering that characterises this work, cheerful and buoyant as it is, though not without grief, fear, and sadness. Love, dance, and play are held in tension with histories of displacement and loss. Each painting preserves the histories, traditions, and ways of seeing the world carried by those who came before, which might otherwise fade through assimilation and time.

“This series has become a journey through grief, an attempt to keep parts of my yiayia alive. As I painted these stories, I began to understand how deeply my identity as a Greek Australian is tied to my older relatives, the first generation of immigrants in our family. They carried our music, traditions, and language with them, passing them down through generations. But over time, parts of that heritage have begun to fade. Losing my yiayia felt, in many ways, like losing a part of my own identity, which is perhaps why I felt such a strong need to memorialise her stories.”

Tashi’s compositions glow with colour, built in dialogue with archival black-and-white family photographs. Through this process, she transforms generational storytelling into luminous, atmospheric fields of colour that reveal the tenderness and complexity of inherited memory.