MARIA PIERIDES
Biography
Born in Greece and having grown up in both the UK and Cyprus, Maria Pierides’ paintings are an artistic odyssey through the physical and emotional landscapes that have shaped her identity.
Pierides trained as an artist and art psychotherapist and worked in the NHS for a number of years. In 2022 she was selected as a winner of the Visual Artists Association International Exhibition and Scholarship Prize. Her painting has been shortlisted for the Society of Women Artists Open, The Royal West Academy, ING Discerning Eye, and the East Meets West Art Award. Her work is held in private collections in the U.K, USA and Europe.
Utilising oils and pastels blended with a mixture of sand, sawdust and wax she builds up and scrapes back textural layers to capture the sense of atmosphere, mass, light and the poetry of the landscapes she aims to depict. Working from her studio nestled in the foothills of the breathtaking and expansive landscape of the Brecon Beacons, Pierides infuses her immediate surroundings with the nostalgic vistas and cultural landscapes of her identity resulting in both a feeling of richness and diversity of experience as well as a search for rootedness in the moment and in space.
Maria Pierides’ work is a study in texture and sense of place, a rumination on the sublime elemental forces of nature and an exploration of the ever-changing facets of the landscapes that shape our sense of belonging and identity. Her work seamlessly connects inner and outer worlds, musing on the profound interconnectedness of the human experience with the natural world.
