Kristen Margiotta
About the Artists
Ellen Durkan
Ellen Durkan is an artist blacksmith from Wilmington, Delaware. She teaches part-time at a college and runs her own business, Iron Maiden Forge. Ellen creates wearable "Forged Fashion" art, which she presents through performance runway shows, in addition to her large-scale drawings. During the summer, she teaches blacksmithing classes at various craft centers and frequently travels to events and conferences for forging demonstrations.
Ellen holds a graduate degree in Fine Arts. She discovered her passion for metalworking in college, and her curiosity and determination have driven her to develop her current body of work. She incorporates various techniques, such as chasing, repousse, and leatherwork, to enhance her creations. Her journey began with forged stationary "metal dresses" that were displayed on nude figures.
Her current work, inspired by the human body, is designed to be worn and reflects both physical and emotional vulnerability. Ellen enjoys creating pieces that fit the complex forms of the human figure, each taking on a new presence with a new wearer. She forges her work to serve as both visual and metaphorical armor. The metal forging and forming process continually inspires her to build challenging new creations meant to be worn.
Each of Ellen Durkan's pieces begins with a hand-drawn prototype. This prototype is transformed into a detailed graphic drawing and then meticulously planned for construction over several weeks with the help of apprentices. She then carefully heats and molds each piece to its intended shape, step by step, heat by heat.
Kristen Margiotta
Kristen Margiotta is a Delaware based oil painter, artist, and art educator. She has been creating art since her childhood, and pursued an education at the University of Delaware where she studied both commercial illustration and crossed over into fine arts classes. Her education continued as she studied on her own post graduation in 2005, establishing a more clearly defined drawing and painting curriculum which still continues to practice with her students to this day.
Her narrative oil paintings combine imagination with a realistic portrayal of her chosen subject matter. Fire, dripping pearl tears, and white lilies are abound in her work. Themes as transformation, love, and loss, are wound up as powerful amalgamations, birthing beautiful imagery with provocative messages. Her previous body of work focussed on “big eyed” characters in unsettling environments, which also crossed over into published children’s books for about fifteen years.
Margiotta’s work went through a transformation, as a reflection of personal and intimate experiences in recent years. It is only natural that her work would shift, as her personal life had shifted. She’s returned to her roots of realism, but not limited to the confines of reality. Her work is heavily inspired by the old masters, and art history, specifically the drama of the Baroque era and devotional artwork, which she fuses with her own modern day interpretations and internal dialogue.
Margiotta currently lives in Newark, Delaware with her boyfriend, and stray cats, where she works and teaches art privately from her home art studio.
