Alexia Kokkinou was born and raised in Salonica where she studied Design, Interior Architecture and Design, as well as Graphic Arts Technology and Fine Arts in the Technological Educational Institute of Athens.
Apart from the classical Typography, she was also taught all the methods of printing, including the techniques for lithography and silk-screen print. Regarding the printed work, especially the book, she studied all the stages of creating a book, all the way to its completion, including the bookbinding. In this, she specialised in both fine and mechanical binding.
From 1993 to 1996, Alexia shadowed Georgios Foskolos, fine book binder, who passed on to her his experience and his insight in bookbinding, the conservation and restoration of books, and the art of gold tooling and of decorating the binding. In 1996, after 45 years of running his bindery, Georgios Foskolos appointed her as his successor.
Apart from the simple and the fine bindings, Alexia takes on the repair, the conservation, the preservation, and the restoration of frayed books and previous bookbindings, together with the handmade creation of many unique objects, and even the making of boxes, cases etc.Her interest lies in traditional binding, but goes beyond this to include the book itself as a unique object, a work of art, as well as in the research, the design, and the application of modern materials and styles with respect to contemporary bookbinding.
As a public speaker, Alexia has taken part in single-day forums, in conferences of higher education, in museums, in venues for cultural events, and in artists’ groups, all bookbinding related. She has connections with many libraries in Greece with which she works in various ways.
She has also taken part in exhibitions and Contests abroad. In 2017 she received an award at Biennales Mondiales de la Reliure d’Art, one of the most important international contests, located in Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, France.Alexia has taken part in the Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Contest, which is in association with the Bodleian Libraries and the Oxford Library, UK. Designer Bookbinders is held regularly and attracts the interest of the best bookbinders in the world. Alexia has also taken part in exhibitions organised by ARA “Les amis de la reliure d’art” (friends of fine binding), an international organisation. Alexia is a member of ARA and has attended their conferences, library exhibitions, and galleries in Greece and abroad.
In 2003, she organised an exhibition on the Greek island of Tinos, where she not only presented the history of bookbinding and its advancement from antiquity to today, but she also displayed her own unique creations, modern bookbindings and works of art. Alexia is working with museums, galleries, private libraries, art galleries, monasteries, engravers, photographers and more.Her works can be found in the collections of high-profile persons in Greece and the US (Washington, New York, Boston), and in well-known libraries in France, Italy, the Patriarchate of Konstantinople, the Greek island of Halki, the Library of Alexandria in Egypt with its first grand opening. Some of her works are also found in the municipality of Casarano in Italy, in Aghion Oros, Greece, in the hands of Queen Sofia of Spain etc.
