Artist Pages

Mariana Sain-Morar

Mariana Sain-Morar - Biography

Born in Romania, Mariana Sain-Morar received her formal training and developed her artistic skills in her native land. During her college years she exhibited her work in Romania and Hungary. Her professional career began in 1982 after receiving her degree from the Academy of Fine Art, Iasi.

While continuing to paint, she spent the next three years as an art teacher in Predeal,Romania. In 1985 she decided to continue her education in the restoration field. She worked for seven years restoring old churches from the National Patrimony (14th-18th century) as part of a restoration team led by the best-known Romanian experts in the field.

Under communism, the most somber period in Romania's artistic history, Mariana was not often able to exhibit her art because her paintings did not fit within the social-realist type of art that fed the Romanian dictator's personality cult.

After the Revolution, she was accepted as a member of the Romanian Artist Union in 1990. That same year she was able to travel and exhibit in England. At the Tate Gallery in London she saw for the first time paintings by Turner, which impressed her very much.

Another exhibition that included her work in Saint Petersburg followed. During that trip to Russia, in 1991, Mariana was able to visit the Hermitage Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow. In 1994, during a trip to Austria she saw a retrospective of George Rouault, whose work has influenced her own.

She is particularly known for creating in her paintings a surrealist atmosphere without employing surrealistic technique. Basic line defines Sain-Morar's drawings:

"They are as simple as those on the caves at Lascaux, yet more expressive with their own personalities" - Joan Crowder.

Mariana came to the United States in 1992 and continues to work and exhibit from her studio in San Diego. Her works are in private collections in USA, England, France, Germany, Russia, Italy and Romania.