Despina Theocharidou (b. 1987, Sofia, Bulgaria) is an interdisciplinary Cypriot visual artist living and working in Nicosia. Her practice moves fluidly between drawing, painting, video, installation, performance, and digital media, always returning to narrative and storytelling as its foundation.

She studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg, and AKTO in Athens. For more than a decade, she worked in advertising as a Creative Director, Illustrator, and Copywriter; an unconventional path that allowed her to cultivate a hybrid visual language at the intersection of fine art and mass culture. In 2025, influenced by shifting priorities and the realities of chronic illness, she chose to devote herself entirely to her artistic practice.

Her body of work is in constant negotiation between personal and collective histories, humour and trauma, tradition and modernity – a persistent attempt to excavate the roots of contemporary existence by reinterpreting themes of nostalgia, mythology, identity, and confessional storytelling.

Drawing on cultural heritage and collective experience, Theocharidou’s work aims to open spaces for dialogue, weaving together words, images, symbols, and materials as narrative tools. Her figurative paintings combine classical techniques with pop-cultural or anachronistic iconography, often incorporating gold leaf, iridescent pigments, and Byzantine-inspired elements as a commentary on value, ornamentation, and historical memory. Her video, performance, and installation works expand these themes, exploring surveillance, psychological landscapes, and the fragmented self in digital spaces.

While painting remains her enduring medium, she sees discourse, either spoken, written, or implied, as the constant presence in her practice. For her, beneath every surface lies a silent scream: a refusal to forget, a need to be revealed, and a desire for connection.