City Gallery presents Nostos: Two Charleston artists trace home, memory and belonging from Greece to the Lowcountry

City Gallery at Joe Riley Waterfront Park will present NOSTOS: An Exhibition of Home, Memory, Migration and Belonging, featuring Charleston artists Vassiliki Falkehag and Susan C. Gregory. The exhibition is on view Nov. 20, 2026, through Jan. 24, 2027, with a free opening reception Friday, Nov. 20, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Taking its name from the Greek word nostos, or homecoming, the exhibition is an American odyssey through objects and landscape. More than 45 works of installation, encaustic, mixed-media painting, sculpture and printmaking bring a sense of place into focus through the ancestral and the contemporary. Falkehag and Gregory draw on their Greek American experiences and family histories of migration from Hellenic origins to the American Lowcountry, and consider how heritage is carried, transformed and reimagined as we come to belong.

Friends in art and life, the artists come from families who settled in Charleston during the 20th century, seeking geopolitical refuge and academic and economic opportunity. From the early 1900s onward, Greek families built homes and businesses throughout the King Street corridor and the East Side, West Side, North Central and Hampton Park neighborhoods, a Hellenic community that remains part of the Holy City today.

The artists also share Kavala, Greece. Falkehag held a residency there at the Swedish House in the 1990s. In 2024, Gregory spent three weeks at the Eutopia Art Residency in Kavala, where she made a pilgrimage to that same building and sent images home to her friend. Letters passed between them, and Gregory returned with Greek plastic bags and orange seeds for Falkehag’s artwork.

Falkehag, an eco-artist, monoprints discarded remnants, immortalizing the objects she collects. In NOSTOS, she creates installations from found water bottles and other discarded plastic, which are ubiquitous in Greece, with water as a strong and pervasive elemental theme. Her mother’s hand-woven blanket brings family story into the show, and lemon trees and dandelion plants appear across her prints, sculpture and installations.

Gregory creates interpretive landscapes that layer images of her grandmother’s domestic and beauty items and kitchen tools into a horizon of the mind. Her encaustic and mixed-media works combine collaged transfers of the photographed items, rubbings of linens her grandmother embroidered by hand, and found objects such as restaurant plastic, street oranges, sidewalk poppies, jasmine and oleander. Her large works grew from small paintings made during her 2024 residency, derived from her walks in Kavala.

Visitor information

• Opening reception: Friday, Nov. 20, from 5 to 7 p.m. Free and open to all.
• Artists’ talk: Sunday, Jan. 17, 2027, at 2 p.m.
• Location: City Gallery, 34 Prioleau St., at Joe Riley Waterfront Park
• Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Holiday closures will be listed on the gallery’s website.

About the artists

Vassiliki Falkehag is a Greek American eco-artist born in Athens who has lived and worked between Greece, Sweden and Charleston, where she is now based. She studied studio art and art history at the College of Charleston and was a head teacher at Örebro Art College in Sweden. She works across installation, printmaking and sculpture, pairing single-use plastics with natural materials such as soil and living plants. Recent projects include Plasticity at Cannon Street Arts Center and Tethered Bloom at the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale in Gongju, South Korea, both in 2025.

Susan C. Gregory is a painter, ceramicist and community studio founder in Charleston. She earned a B.F.A. in painting and ceramics from Western Carolina University and has worked primarily in encaustic since 2009. She co-founded Cone 10 Studios and founded and directs Studio Union, a communal art studio in the Neck of the Charleston peninsula. Recent exhibitions include Shapers at the James Island Cultural Center (2024). Learn more at susangregoryart.com.

About City Gallery

City Gallery, located at 34 Prioleau St. at Joe Riley Waterfront Park, is owned by the City of Charleston and operated by the City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs. Free and open to the public, the gallery presents regular exhibitions and events featuring contemporary art from local, regional, national and international artists, with a focus on the Lowcountry. Learn more at www.charleston-sc.gov/citygallery.