About
Maro Michalakakos was born in Athens (1967), where she lives and works. She studied Fine Arts in France (Ecole Nationale Supeireure d’Arts Plastiques Paris-Cergy) and Germany (Hohschule fur Bildende Kunst, Braunschweig). In 2006 she was nominated for the Castellon County Painting Prize in Valencia, Madrid.Her work, enigmatic and multidimensional (sculptural installations, paintings, drawings, relief on velvet and performance), featuring strong social and cultural references, is often “interwoven” with personal and family memories and characterized by a rare refined rawness.
She creates installations that treat space as a philosophical whole instead of merely a setting, and chooses figures and themes that are always characterized by intensity. Her artistic universe borders on the realm of dreams, with a superficial serenity deliberately situated in the liminal space between reality and imagination.
She has participated in many solo and group exhibitions in Europe, USA and Turkey, and has repeatedly collaborated with major theater directors and companies for the creation of set installations (National Theatre of Greece, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Onassis Culture, Poria Theater). Works of hers are featured in several collections, including: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Tate Britain, FNAC – Paris, Istanbul Modern (Istanbul Museum of Modern Art). Maro Michalakakos’s works have been purchased by FNAC (Fonds Nationale d’art Contemporain, France) as well as by various private collectors and Institutions such as the Instabul Modern.
Selected Shows: Egleismoi, Dromokaiteio Psychiatric Institution (GR, 2022), Dream On, ΝΕΟΝ: Former Public Tobacco Factory (GR, 2022), Pott/Pott, Ethnological Museum of Amfissa, The Symptom Projects (GR, 2022), In Orbit, Kalfayan Galleries (GR, 2021), La Chasse, Embassy of France (GR, 2019), Les Oiseaux du Paradis, Ofr La Boutique, (FR, 2018), Flying Over the Abyss, NEON: Athens Conservatoire (GR, 2016); Till it’s gone, an exhibition on Nature and Sustainability, Istanbul Modern (TR, 2016), Matières à Rêver, Château des Adhémar, Montélimar (FR, 2016), Motopoétique, MAC-Lyon (FR, 2014), Heart of Darkness, NEON: The Athens Festival (GR, 2012), The King, Analix Forever (CH, 2012), I Would Prefer Not To, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Center (GR, 2012), Monuments et Animaux, Château de Pierrefonds (FR, 2012), Parallel Universe, 511 Gallery (USA, 2010).
