Maria is an artist, children's books and surface illustrator. Part Dutch, part Greek, she is now based in Munich, Germany.
Coming from a Fine Arts background with studies in painting, sculpture and digital art, her journey has taken her from the Netherlands and Sweden for her BFA to New York City, where she earned a Master of Arts degree at NYU. She then spent a couple of years working as a designer and art director in NYC, mostly doing web design and ID for big name agencies. After a move back to Europe and more years of digital agency work, her desire to combine on-screen with off-screen work grew, and she created her one-of-a-kind jewelry label indÃgena that has grown to sell online and in several boutiques across Germany.
In the past 4 years, she has immersed herself in illustrating and returned to the kind of work that she had always been most passionate about, enriched by the wealth of knowledge and experience that she gathered across the fields of art and design over the years.
Today, she loves illustrating with watercolors, inks and gouache, with a keen eye for the smallest details, colors and a good composition. She enjoys exploring surface patterns with lush watercolor florals and cherishes the challenge of working large scale on shop windows and murals.
Maria recently finished work on her first fully illustrated children's book for cbj (an imprint of Random House) blending in her favorite motifs of flowers, birds and people to tell a story about why happiness lives in our hearts.