Maria Moldovan

Mária Moldovan was born and raised in central Romania. She started her visual arts education at the High School of Arts, Sf. Gheorghe Romania (painting) and then studied ceramic art at the University of Arts and Design in Cluj Napoca. She was attracted to aspects of two-dimensional and three-dimensional art, and found that working in clay brought the two disciplines together.

Maria moved with her family to Canada in 2013. Currently she is a full-time studio artist living in Arnprior, Ontario. As well as working in clay, she paints and has built a fine reputation as a children’s book illustrator. She also teaches ceramic art at the Ottawa School of Art.

“Creating art works for me is a journey. A constant moving from outside to inside and vice-versa. It is about the process of connecting the outside world to my inner world. I can have as a starting point, an element from the surrounding world, from a landscape or some object or living creature and I start to work with it; it goes through me. I transform it into something different. Leaving a familiar home and searching for anchor points in a new place is a challenging process. This searching has been a driving force in my creative work in the past few years. Exploring a new world, new dimensions can be inspiring and the process of searching leads us in unknown outer and inside spaces as well.”  -M. Moldovan