“Si la vie n’est qu’un passage, sur ce passage au moins semons des fleurs.”
“If life is only a passage, then on that passage at least let us sow flowers.”
— a phrase attributed to Michel de Montaigne
Marina Karella presents her new body of work in the solo exhibition Le Passage at Zoumboulakis Gallery.
This new series creates a space of transition — a true “passage” into a new visual language. It is not merely a thematic reference, but a profound shift in Karella’s artistic vocabulary. Paintings on canvas, alongside drawings, ceramic vases, plates, and painted tiles, reveal her desire to move fluidly between painting and object, the everyday and the imaginary, the elevated and the intimate.
Following a long journey through painting and sculpture, including her iconic drapery works, interiors, and dreamlike environments, Karella’s practice now feels more liberated than ever. Drawing detaches itself from description, while colour takes on a leading role. Her subjects — while retaining their dreamlike quality — acquire a renewed presence and intensity.
Human and animal figures, botanical elements, and landscapes compose Karella’s universe of “magical realism,” which here seems to breathe with new energy. The metaphysical quality of the figures no longer merely suggests their presence, but brings them directly into the viewer’s gaze. The viewer is invited to move through an environment where narration is not linear, but fragmented and poetic.
Karella proposes a parallel world — luminous, playful, yet still deeply connected to existential and emotional reality.
Marina Karella will also participate in the group exhibition Life Cycles, organised in collaboration with Amanzoe in Kranidi, Argolis, alongside four other Greek female artists, presenting sculptural works. The exhibition will run from May 22 until October 30, 2026.
About
Marina Karella (b. 1940) is a painter and sculptor who has lived and worked between Athens, Paris, and New York throughout her life. She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts, the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and the Salzburg Academy of Fine Arts.
She began her career designing theatre sets and costumes before dedicating decades to painting, while simultaneously experimenting radically with materials, eventually leading to her iconic drapery sculptures. The influence of her mentor, the renowned painter Yannis Tsarouchis, can be traced throughout many of her translucent, dreamlike paintings, alongside the imprint of the years she spent sculpting in her Manhattan studio during New York’s artistic peak.
During the 1970s and 1980s, she worked under the patronage of influential New York gallerist Alexander Iolas and subsequently exhibited internationally. Oscillating between portraiture, still life, and landscape, her postmodern works move between narrative representation and archetypal symbolism.
Her work has been featured in publications including The New Yorker and is included in major private collections and museums such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Menil Collection in Houston, the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, the National Gallery of Greece, and the Yokohama Museum in Japan. In 2005, the Benaki Museum presented a major retrospective of her work in Athens.
She is also the founder and president of the non-profit organisation ELIZA, dedicated to the prevention of child abuse.
Exhibition Duration: June 4 – July 4, 2026
Zoumboulakis Gallery: 20 Kolonaki Square, Athens
