Maria Pierides is a painter whose work explores migration, transitional space, memory and belonging. Born in Greece, raised between England and Cyprus, and now based in Wales, her practice is informed by a life lived across different geographical and cultural contexts.
Working in oil and mixed media, Pierides builds, removes and reworks layers of paint, allowing earlier states to remain visible within the surface. Increasingly working with diptychs, her recent paintings explore division and connection, and the shifting psychological territory between departure and arrival, here and there, past and present.
Alongside her studio practice, Pierides trained and worked as an art psychotherapist, and her understanding of psychological experience continues to inform her approach to painting, particularly her interest in memory, internal landscape and states of transition.
Her work has been shortlisted for the Royal West of England Academy, Society of Women Artists Open and ING Discerning Eye, among others, and has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her paintings are held in private collections in the UK, Europe and the USA.
She is represented by Studio Cennen, Kingsford Gallery and Wychwood Art.
