Biography
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.
Works
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Iliodora MargellosDoudou, 2021Handmade embroidery and weaving on acrylic-coated metal screen, yarn, mohair yarn, blue jeans thread, floss, Rochefort & Tonkin thread, string, glass beads24 3/8 x 24 3/8 in
62 x 62 cm -
Iliodora MargellosLong Quiet River, 2022Indigo tie dyed drawstring, antique brass chain, pillow filling, lining fabric, found plastic beads & floor mirrorsVariable dimensions
Part 1: height 35 3/8 x diameter 23 5/8 in | height 90 x diameter 60 cm
Part 2: height 10 5/8 x diameter 10 5/8 in | height 27 x diameter 27 cm
Part 3: height 17 3/4 x diameter 15 3/4 in | height 45 x diameter 40 cm -
Iliodora MargellosDoudou (Truce Be Told), 2022Handmade embroidery and weaving on metal screen, yarn, mohair yarn, blue jeans thread, floss, Rochefort & Tonkin thread, string, crystal & glass beads49 5/8 x 49 5/8 x 1 3/4 in
126 x 126 x 4.5 cm
Framed -
Iliodora MargellosStudy for "You Will See Through It", 2022Handmade embroidery and weaving on metal screen, yarn, mohair yarn, blue jeans thread, floss, Rochefort & Tonkin thread, string, glass beads11 1/2 x 9 1/8 x 1 1/8 in
29.2 x 23.2 x 3 cm
Framed -
Iliodora MargellosYou Will See Through It, 2022Handmade embroidery and weaving on metal screen, yarn, mohair yarn, blue jeans thread, floss, Rochefort & Tonkin thread, string, glass beads44 1/8 x 34 5/8 x 2 1/8 in
112 x 88 x 5.5 cm -
Iliodora MargellosStudy for “Doudou“, 2022Handmade embroidery and weaving on acrylic-coated metal screen, yarn, mohair yarn, blue jeans thread, floss, Rochefort & Tonkin thread, string, glass beads9 1/8 x 9 1/8 x 1 1/8 in
23 x 23 x 3 cm -
Iliodora MargellosStudy for "Fragments of Transparencies", 2022Handmade embroidery and weaving on metal screen, yarn, mohair yarn, blue jeans thread, floss, Rochefort & Tonkin thread, string, glass beads9 7/8 x 13 3/4 x 1 1/8 in
25 x 35 x 3 cm
Framed -
Iliodora MargellosYou Will See It Through, 2022Handmade embroidery and weaving on metal screen, yarn, mohair yarn, blue jeans thread, floss, Rochefort & Tonkin thread, string, glass beads44 1/8 x 34 5/8 x 2 1/8 in
112 x 88 x 5.5 cm -
Iliodora MargellosSecurities ('Petit à Petit l'Infini'), 2022Handmade embroidery with linen thread on voile fabric and canvas, felt, metallic floss
22 1/4 x 19 1/8 x 1 3/8 in
56.5 x 48.5 x 3.5 cm -
Iliodora MargellosSecurities (Mystic Absolutes Everywhere), 2022Handmade embroidery with linen thread on tulle fabric and canvas
22 1/4 x 19 1/4 x 1 3/8 in
56.5 x 48.8 x 3.5 cm
Framed -
Iliodora MargellosOpening (The Threshold Of A New Home Is A Lo(v)ely Place), 2022Handmade embroidery on tie-dyed canvas, floss, mirror, wood24 3/4 x 17 1/8 x 1 in
63 x 43.5 x 2.5 cm -
Iliodora Margellos00:20, 2020Handmade embroidery on tie-dyed canvas, beads (Venetian hand-blown glass, pearls, garnet, glass)21 1/4 in diameter
54 cm diameter -
Iliodora MargellosMoirai, 2021Handmade embroidery on tie dyed canvas, beads
(Swarovski crystal, glass, hand blown Venetian glass)23 1/4 in diameter
59 cm diameter -
Iliodora MargellosBête Noire, 2020Handmade embroidery on cotton fabric, floss, blue jean thread, glass & wooden beads, sequinsFabric: 25 5/8 x 26 in (65 x 66 cm)
Famed: 27 1/2 x 28 in (70 x 71 cm)
Exhibitions
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Iliodora Margellos
Fragments of Transparencies 17 Sep - 22 Oct 2022Baert Gallery is pleased to present Fragments of Transparencies, Iliodora Margellos’ (b. 1985, Minneapolis, MN. Lives and works in Athens, Greece) first solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from...Read more -
SUMMER GROUP EXHIBITION
Melinda Braathen, Paolo Colombo, Pam Evelyn, Reuben Gordon, Iliodora Margellos, Francesca Mollett, Jebila Okongwu and Sophie Wahlquist 24 Jul - 18 Sep 2021Baert Gallery is pleased to present a Summer Group Exhibition featuring Melinda Braathen, Paolo Colombo, Pam Evelyn, Reuben Gordon, Iliodora Margellos, Francesca Mollett, Jebila Okongwu and Sophie Wahlquist. This group...Read more -
Color is an Act of Reason
Jasmin Blasco, Melinda Braathen, Francesca Gabbiani, Reuben Gordon, Amy MacKay, Iliodora Margellos, Jebila Okongwu 3 Aug - 14 Sep 2019Color is uncontainable. It effortlessly reveals the limits of language and evades our best attempts to impose a rational order on it... To work with color is to become acutely...Read more -
Iliodora Margellos & Francesca Gabbiani
10 Feb - 24 Mar 2018A two person show has the great advantage of presenting a substantial amount of each artist’s work, giving the opportunity for viewers to compare, to think in wider horizons and...Read more
News
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Iliodora Margellos
Group exhibition “Beautiful“ by Dio Horia Contemporary Art Platform, Parnassos Literary Society, Athens, Greece March 2, 2019March 2 - April 6, 2019 Eleven contemporary visual artists from Greece and Cyprus in dialogue with the Parnassos Literary Society historical collection. Within the...Read more -
Iliodora Margellos
Solo exhibition “One Sun for All“, Dio Horia, Mykonos, Greece May 27, 2018May 27 – June 23, 2018 Margellos’s multidisciplinary work sits in between figurative and abstract art practices and focuses on the discovery and understanding of...Read more
Press
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Iliodora Margellos interviewed on the Sound & Vision podcast
Sound & Vision, September 8, 2022 -
How to Spent it Athens: an art capital arises
Kasia Maciejowska, Financial Times, September 3, 2020 -
Where the landscape painting takes some imaginative turns
David Pagel, Los Angeles Times, February 23, 2018