Marianna Ignataki

Working primarily in drawing, painting and sculpture, Marianna Ignataki’s practice enables her to enter a vague, subliminal world, filled with images of her own mythology. Her work ranges from minimalistic scenes and portraits to exaggerated, kitsch, Rococo inspired compositions.
It explores themes of identity and the perception of self, the other side; a dream that turns to nightmare, the attraction to terror, the fascination with carnival, the freedom and the ambiguous feelings provoked by the use of masks. The works are mainly anthropocentric, with female or ambiguously-gendered protagonists that resemble witches, animals or hybrids. Often, an unspecified or even perversive eroticism is implied, one that does not concern sexuality in the sense of sexual act but the mental state of erotic desire; our instincts, or a hidden dark side. These vague, surrealistic scenes, play with the notion of the absurd and combine seemingly heterogeneous elements which are subtly linked through compositional elements. By adding unexpected details with a sense of dark humour, the initial meaning of seemingly normal scenes is inverted or perverted, resulting to ironic, bizarre and grotesque situations.

Marianna Ignataki was born in 1977 in Thessaloniki, Greece. She studied Architecture at the Technische Universität in Vienna, Austria and Visual Arts at the School of Fine Arts of Saint-Etienne, France. Between 2010-2017 she was based in Beijing, China. She now lives and works between Berlin, Germany and Greece.

She has presented eleven solo exhibitions to date, namely The Hole at Bark Berlin gallery (2021), Pleasure Drive, duo show with Alana Lake at frontviews / HAUNT, Berlin (2021), Die Schleife at Vincenz Sala gallery, Berlin (2020), In A Deep, Dark Forest They Were Braiding The Beards Of Parrots In Love at CAN Christina Androulidaki gallery, Athens (2019) and at the Municipal Gallery of Thessaloniki, Alatza Imaret, Thessaloniki (2018), Josie, The Armor And The Hairman at CAN Christina Androulidaki gallery, Athens (2017), The End of Magic at Outpost Slotervaart, Amsterdam (2012), Sphinx at Fake Space, Beijing (2011), This Joke Ain’t Funny Anymore at Zina Athanassiadou gallery, Thessaloniki (2009), Coitus Interruptus (double solo show) at Public Room, Skopje (2008) and a solo show in cooperation with Lola Nikolaou gallery at Fleming gallery, Thessaloniki (2004).

She has participated in a number of group shows in Greece, China, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, North Macedonia and the USA, such as: KI-ΝΗΜΑΤΑ at Bouboulina Museum, Spetses (2021), Gods and Monsters, Blick Auf Die Jüngste Vergangenheit, Kunstverein Montez, Frankfurt (2021), Nyctophilia II at CAN Christina Andoulidaki gallery, Athens (2020), Where the Trees Have Numbers at frontviews / HAUNT, Berlin (2020), Homeostasis, Frontviews at Heit, Berlin (2019), Overview Effect: Encountering the Cosmos at MOMUS Museums, Thessaloniki (2019), Athens Photo Festival at Benaki Museum, Athens (2019), Am I that name or that image at MoCA Skopje (2019), What is Eros at MOMUS Museums, Thessaloniki (2019), Reverse the Perspective at Xiangsi Art Museum, Tianjin (2015), Dialog between Chinese and international artists, Taihang Huang Shan at Renmin University Museum, Beijing (2014), The Beautiful Is Just The First Degree of the Terrible at the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki (2009) and the 13th Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean in Bari (2008).

She is represented by CAN Christina Androulidaki gallery, Athens and is part of the Berlin based artist collective frontviews.