Eirini Linardaki
Eirini Linardaki, (b. 1976 in Athens, Greece) is a visual artist and public art project developer based between New York, Newark, NJ and the island of Crete. From her early work supporting environmental causes in Greece to her later involvement with Handicap International in Liberia (using art to bring visibility to people with disabilities), her journey has been shaped by human connection, environmental action and commitment to social justice.
She received her fine arts education at L.I.T. Limerick, Ireland, the Universität Der Kunst of Berlin, and the École Superieure des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, France. She later taught at art schools and universities in the UK, France and USA, and continues to appear as a guest lecturer at the SVA in New York. Outside of academia, one of her major professional focuses is community-based art practice. She has been an active member of Newark Artist Collaboration and Four Corners Public Art Project: two initiatives aiming to transform Newark through monumental public art.
More recently, she has undertaken large-scale commissions from high-profile partners and institutions including MTA Arts and Design, Monument Lab, Audible Inc., NYC Parks and Art at Amtrak. As a result, her works have since adorned esteemed public spaces such as Grand Central Madison, Penn Station and the BQE in New York, Union Station in Washington D.C. and Harriet Tubman Square in Newark.
On a different plane is her involvement in participative school art projects across the East Coast that have resulted in numerous commissions for the schools themselves. Similarly, she is currently directing an art program in Cameroon, West Africa on behalf of the French Institute: a project enabling local talents to create public art for the cities of Yaoundé and Douala.
Elsewhere, through her membership of Onassis ONX in New York, she is researching environmental resilience in island communities. With these being by definition at the front line of climate change, she is seeking to develop immersive media practices and technologies that can evocatively communicate the collective anxiety of the people impacted. This is in some way an extension of Linardaki's activist work, which has been recognized with the 2022 Artivist Award from Sing for Hope, plus both the 2023 and 2025 Newark Accelerator Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. But perhaps her proudest achievement of all is being the mother of two teenage sons.