Iliodora Margellos b. 1985, Minneapolis (USA) | Lives and works in Athens (Greece)

Iliodora Margellos maintains a multidisciplinary body of work that intermingles drawing, painting, sculpture, site-specific installations, embroidery and performance. Over the years, she has developed a kaleidoscopic visual universe built of delicate expressive gestures materialized through meshes, fabrics, threads, drawings on paper, beads and other materials.

Effortlessly moving within the fluid space between abstraction and representation, Margellos examines questions of loneliness, labor, restlessness, the meaning of femininity and the impenetrable complexity of intersubjective relational matrices. Since 2016, her artistic research has led her to embroidery as a way of personal expression, using needle and thread as an alternative way of drawing intrinsically linked to patience, the passing of time, and self-healing. Despite their attentive and meticulous making process, Margellos’ works manifest a presence that is calm, fresh and effortlessly suspended between the aesthetic legacies of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, allowing their rich colors and textures to communicate complex emotions and concepts that are conveyed with honesty and restraint.

 

The beauty and dexterity inherent in every work by Margellos truly reveals itself on close inspection. The smaller scale of the works and the detail which she has chosen to work with require the viewer to look closely and observe how perfectly executed every detail is. It is fascinating how a few well-placed stitches and a pair of beads transform into a miniature plant or a sunset smaller than one’s thumb. Some of the artist’s embroideries are more akin to virtuosically  microscopic relief sculptures placed on a wire mesh surface - a result of hours of meticulous and highly skilled craft work and a minutely planned assembling of a selective variety of rare precious beads and thread sourced from around the world.

 

liodora Margellos was born in Minneapolis, USA in 1985. She graduated from Yale University in 2006. Between 2007 and 2009, she further expanded her artistic practice with studies in drawing at the Salzburg Academy of Fine Arts in Austria and photography at Columbia University. Among others, her work has been exhibited at the Parnassos Literary Society, Athens, Greece; the Museum of Greek Modern Culture, Athens, Greece; Dio Horia Gallery, Mykonos, Greece; Casa Internazionale delle Donne, Rome, Italy; and Louise Bourgeois’ Sunday Salons, New York, NY.

 

The artist lives and works in Athens, Greece.