Drawing on folk art traditions, Ikonomopoulou brings together embroidery, drawing, photography, and intricate paper cutting in unexpected ways: newspapers become surfaces to be stitched or drawn upon, photographs, taken during long walks through Athens and Rotterdam, are transformed into fragile floral forms.

Slowness and repetition lie at the heart of her practice. Rather than producing singular, self-contained works, she develops her ideas through series that evolve over time, which are often revisited and reshaped over the course of years. Repetition or, more precisely, variation, becomes a way of staying with a question for long enough for layers to unfold, while the time-intensive, laborious nature of her techniques compels her usually fast-moving thinking to follow the pace of her hands, transforming constraint into a form of focus and freedom.

Her current solo exhibition “All Included” at CITRONNE Gallery in Athens (January 15 – February 28, 2026) brings together works from different periods of her career, not as a retrospective, but rather as a way of tracing continuity across changing contexts. Yatzer recently caught up with the artist to talk about her show, her fascination with floral patterns, and her ongoing search for balance in a world that feels increasingly unsettled.

Answers have been condensed and edited for clarity.

Handicraft techniques such as embroidery and paper cutting are an integral part of your practice. What initially drew you to these time-intensive, hand-made processes? Beyond the exquisite intricacy they produce, do you experience a meditative, or even transformative, dimension in their slowness and repetition?

I still vividly remember craft lessons in primary school; they felt magical to me, much like the weaving, embroidery, and knitting I grew up watching women practice around me. That early experience shaped my lasting fascination with craftspeople and folk. Using related materials and techniques feels like a tribute to the many anonymous makers around the world.

Another reason I choose to work with these methods and materials is partly because of their availability. They are inexpensive, easy to find, and simple to handle, which gives me a great sense of freedom. As someone who works between two countries, my methodology allows me to keep working during those “in-between” moments, even when I’m travelling, when I’m waiting to board a flight for example.

Working with my hands also gives me another, more profound sense of freedom. The slowness of such time-intensive techniques reigns in the frenzied pace of my thoughts. Finding a balance between the mind and body is very liberating.

From cut-out motifs and embroidered patterns to photographs and living plants, flowers have played a consistent role in your practice. What is it about them that continues to draw you back to them?

During the long-term side project Growing Care, I began observing and photographing small pockets of greenery in urban environments that residents looked after themselves. But my interest is not really about flowers; it’s about how we share public spaces with one another. Pots with plants versus cars and motorbikes clearly illustrate the “fight” taking place out there.

In another series, flower patterns were used as archetypal shapes, doodles that people often draw while doing something else, usually while talking on the phone. Over time, through working with them, I learned to appreciate their organic way of growing, their beauty, but also their unpredictability, which reflects the uncertainty of real life. The time, attention, and knowledge required to help a plant grow really fascinates me. There is something in them that we seem to desperately need as humans, beyond the fruits they give us.

I feel I still have a lot to learn. In one of my latest works, Male Female Beauty, I translated a common iron-door pattern into embroidery on newspaper, and realised how close male ironwork and female embroidery really are as they both rely heavily on floral patterns.

In moving between Athens and Rotterdam, you have developed an extensive photographic record of two very different urban environments. How has this shaped your understanding of the city as a shared, lived space and how does it feed into your wider artistic practice?

I love walking in cities. Observing what people do in public spaces fascinates me. The way a street vendor arranges their goods, or how individuals invent their own solutions for everyday life on the street, is an endless source of inspiration, especially in Greece, where the climate allows people to spend so much time outdoors.

Architecture inspires me as well, but it’s the social dimension that interests me the most. Streets, schools, hospitals: these are all spaces that we have to share, even at a time when many of us tend to think that the world revolves around “me.” Sharing public space with strangers is a challenge, and I am very curious to see how we find balance within it. You could say that this question forms the underlying thread that runs through all of my work.

You frequently incorporate words or phrases into your work. What does working with text allow you to articulate that images or forms alone might not?

My work begins with a thought. When I begin with questions about things I don’t fully understand, I look at the language which brings with it meaning, history, and etymology. Using handwritten text and transforming it into drawing felt like a natural step. Even when no text exists, my drawings are more written than drawn. I always begin from a corner of the paper and work mainly with lines; it’s all a form of writing. Writing and drawing are interlinked, they’re both closely connected to the process of thinking.

Several of your public projects rely on collaboration and participation, while others are developed in solitude. How do collective and solitary modes of working inform or challenge one another in your practice?

I love both modes of working; I also need both. I need communication and the exchange of ideas with others about the things that occupy me, and that exchange often takes place with the most ordinary of people: schoolchildren, neighbours, taxi drivers. Working on collaborative projects and creating something that brings together individual contributions into a larger whole, is essential to my practice and is something I return to often.

Studio work, with its solitude and intense concentration, offers the opposite: a space where ideas can deepen and take shape. For me, these two modes of working are truly complementary.