Ekphrasis

Malerin / Painter
Maria Pierides trained as an artist and art psychotherapist, and worked in the NHS for a number of years. She is now devoting herself full time to her art at her studio in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons. Living within earshot of a running stream, in the middle of an enchanted forest, she explores in paint the texture and temporality of human experience. Building up and scraping back areas of paint to capture the atmosphere, mass, light and poetry of the landscapes she is aiming to represent, Maria's work connectss seamlesly inner and outer worlds. Maria is a member of King Street Gallery, Carmarthen, and Free Painters and Sculptors, London. Her work is represented by West Wales Art Centre, Fishguard, and Gallery 54 Ross-on-Wye. Maria's work has been shortlisted for the East Meets West Art Award, the British Women Artists Competition, and the Bentlif Open Art Prize, Maidstone Museum. Work also shown at Llangathen Temperance Hall; Goat Street Gallery, St Davids; Museum of Modern Art, Machynlleth; Parallax AF Art Fair, Chelsea Town Hall, London; EWAAC 2014 La Galleria, Pall Mall, London; Creek Creative, and St Mary's Church, Faversham; The Somerset Maugham Gallery, and The Fish Slab Gallery, Whistable; The Deaf Cat, and Nucleus Arts, Rochester, amongst other places. www.mariapierides,com

Schriftstellerin, Dichterin / Writer, Poet
Stella Pierides is a poet and writer. Her work has been published in numerous print and online journals and anthologies. Books include: Of This World: 48 Haibun (Red Moon Press, 2017) and Feeding the Doves: 31 Short and Very Short Stories (Fruit Dove Press, 2013). Her haiku and micropoetry collection In the Garden of Absence (Fruit Dove Press, 2012) received a Haiku Society of America Merit Book Award. Currently she manages the Per Diem: Daily Haiku feature for The Haiku Foundation. www.stellapierides.com