Marija Mandic was born 1972 in Belgrade, Serbia
Growing up in an artistic family, her fascination for art, music and acting, deeply influenced her artistic development. She showed an affinity for art from the earliest childhood.
Marija's lively and creative spirit, and her expressive individuality did not easily fit into the rigid and regimented school system of former communist Yugoslavia. That kind of curriculum and teaching, she later realised, alienated many naturally creative children from their true being. She was fortunate in finding support and understanding from her parents and family, who nurtured in her a free and creative spirit.
At the age of 18, Marija graduated from acting high school in Belgrade. She took to acting with great energy, but became convinced that being an artist was her true vocation and stood against the wind, like a steppe wolf, with the decision that art is her life: "When you act you are always someone else, but when you paint - you are absolutely Yourself!“, she said. At that time, Marija started attending painting school at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade.
She explored a number of painting, drawing and other techniques, always trying out new media and processes. To this day, her work has featured text and images, self-shot and self-developed photographs related to body movements, people, nature and emotions. These experiments and their results helped her expand her conception of abstract painting’s visual and emotional potential.
In 1994 Marija decided to live in Germany, where she soon began her flourishing artistic career. From 1994-97 she pursued external art studies at the New Art School in Zurich.
Her approach to abstraction has involved a continuous process of exploration and experimentation: painting on canvas, wood, aluminium and other materials. All Marija’s work is driven by a sense that abstraction, in the tradition of many other painters born in the 20th century, provides a vehicle for transcendence and the revelation of the sublime. Her constant devotion to art, in a dynamic that maximises the quality of self-expression, ensures that her work possesses great spiritual force and reaches beyond merely physical parameters.
As she has said: "Our soul knows more of what the eyes cannot see. Art is about what we see with our eyes closed. This is what i'm showing in my paintings."
Marija Mandic lives in Germany and works internationally.
1972 Born in Belgrade, Serbia
1987-91 Graduated from acting school in Belgrade, Serbia
1992-94 Artistic development at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Serbia
1994-97 Extern studies at the New Art School in Zürich, Switzerland
Since 1994 Marija Mandic lives in Germany and works internationally