Michalakakos Maro (1967)

Born in Athens in 1967, she studied painting in France (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Arts Plastiques de Cergy-Pontoise, 1987-1993) and Germany (Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Braunschweig, 1988-1989). In 2006 she was shortlisted for the Painting Award of Castelon County in Valencia, Spain.
Her art, enigmatic and multifaceted (sculptural installations, paintings, drawings, reliefs on velvet) contains social and cultural references and is often based on personal and family memories. In her first solo exhibition her painting appeared as a kind of two-dimensional sculpture as she carved her images on burgundy velvet by shaving the pile. The outcome was shown framed as a painting, suspended like a church banner or incorporated in actual furniture. The fabrics she employs (velvet, lace, ...) are a key material, employed for their relief patterns and using them as her canvas. She approaches space as a philosophical whole rather than just a setting, creating installations with clear references to power, oppression, authority as well as the inextricable concepts of life and death.
She has presented her work in solo exhibitions in Athens, Thessaloniki and abroad (Paris, New York and in dozens of group shows and foires in Greece and abroad, such as Snapshot: An Exhibition of 1000 Artists (Contemporary Museum of Baltimore, 2000), Arco 2004 (Madrid 2004), The Other Journey, e-migration (Hellenic Museum and Cultural Center, Chicago 2006), Synthesis (Galerie Francoise Heitsch, Munich 2013), Public Domain (Milkshake Agency, Geneva 2014), The Kennedy-Bunker (REH-transformer, Berlin 2014), Istanbul is Contemporary (Istanbul 2015), etc.
Her works can be found in public and private collections, museums, galleries and private organisations such as the Fonds Nationales d’Art Contemporain, Istanbul Modern, etc.