Iliodora Margellos

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.

Iliodora Margellos (b. 1985, Minneapolis, USA) is a Greek-Swiss artist who lives and works in Athens, Greece. A graduate of Yale University, Margellos has been the subject of solo and duo exhibitions at Frieze, Los Angeles; Enter Fair, Copenhagen; Dio Horia Gallery in Athens, Greece; Baert Gallery, Los Angeles; a.antonopoulou.art in Athens, Greece and Basel, Switzerland, as well as esteemed institutions and fairs, including Untitled Art, Miami Beach; Art Athina, Athens; the Historical Archives Museum of Hydra, Greece; the Ionian Parliament, Corfu, Greece; Casa Internazionale delle Donne di Roma, Italy; Sunday Salons at Louise Bourgeois’ Residence, New York.

Group exhibitions include Ephemeral PArTy, CARCO, Athens, featuring works from Philip Tsangrides private collection; A Running Thread, Editions Art & Design, Dubai; ODYSSEY, The Archaeological Museum of Piraeus, Athens; The Butterfly Effect, Mouzakis-Butterfly Textile Factory, Athens; NOW WOMEN, Fougaro Art Center, Nafplion, featuring works from Florica Kyriacopoulos private collection; Tyranny: A Modern Intimacy, 61st Thessaloniki International Film Festival; Omega to Alpha, Museum of Modern Greek Culture, Athens.

In 2024, she was commissioned to produce an installation for the Hermes store shopfront in Athens.