Despina Meimaroglou is a multi-media artist, born (1944) and raised in Egypt. Settled in Athens, Greece after the completion of her art studies in the U.K. in 1966, where she professed in advertising as a graphic artist for the following ten years before dedicating her time entirely to her art. She studied Visual Arts, Printmaking, Graphic Design and Typography (N. D. D.) at Kent Institute of Art and Design Kent, U.K. (1961- 1965).
Her main preoccupation over the years is the mutual relationship between reality and its representation, social and political (f)acts and their distortion. Her aim is to capture and reconstitute my perception of truth from the layers of time and memory as well as from the mediation of social and media-induced stereotypes. Her continuous world travels and effort to communicate with variant individuals belonging to civilizations dissimilar to hers enables Meimaroglou to discover and therefore comprehend the differences and semblances which bind us with the Other. From 1981 onwards, Meimaroglou held more than 25 one-person shows in Greece and abroad and have participated in numerous important shows in Greece, in the USA (Pyramid Atlantic Art Center / Washington DC, John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY, N.Y / Columbia College Chicago) as well as in Paris, Aix-en-Provence, Milan, Toronto, the Czech Republic and the Alexandrian Library. In 2009 she participated in two international Biennials: Thessaloniki / Biennale 2 and 1st International Women’s Biennale in Incheon S. Korea. Since the mid 90’s Meimaroglou have participated in art conferences and numerous art workshops & residencies mainly at US Universities and Foundations as well as at Quito University in Ecuador, Richmond American College in London and MEU University in Amman – Jordan. Her goal is to achieve a level of visual and intellectual communication using Art as a common language. Meimaroglou’s works run the gamut from site-specific installations, photography, video, typography and printmaking to artist books. She speaks Greek, English, Arabic and French.