MariaManuela’s pictures define the contrasts between the culture of the Far East and the western world’s pop-culture at the same time as they bring the two forms together. She derives her inspiration from classic Japanese woodcuts and their motifs of fantastically coiffured, cherry-lipsticked women, dressed in exquisitely patterned kimonos. But what she presents for the viewer are modern young Japanese women in mini-skirts, dancing among the cherry blossom and haiku poems.
Her Pop Icons are painted in vinyl on linen canvas – layer upon layer laboriously laid down to achieve the effect of a printed, japanned surface. The lines of the lips, the semi-circular contours of the eyes and the billowing coiffures are expressed against a monochromatic background. Her advertisement-like images combine mystique with unequivocal simplicity, setting a stage for all manner of different facial expressions – melancholy, pensive, jovial.
Born in Stockholm in 1959, Maria Manuela Vintilescu’s first serious encounter with art came at the age of seven. It was with fascination that she viewed Niki de Saint-Phalle’s giant sculpture She, then displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm. After graduating from the Ecole Française in Stockholm, Maria took courses in painting, drawing and advertising. After ten years as a scene painter in the theatre, she turned to her own art. Her Pop Icons appeared for the first time in 1998. Two years later her Flower Year suite was exhibited in the Stockholm Spring Show at Liljevalch’s Gallery. These twelve female portraits were published in booklet form accompanied by Japanese haiku poetry interpreted by her father, Jan Vintilescu. It was his book that had first introduced this Japanese lyric form to a wider audience of Swedes in 1959.
Since the exhibition at Liljevalchs in 2000, her Pop Icons have been exposed at galeries, art fairs and museums in Europe and elsewhere, like in Tokyo Art Factory in Japan, at Villa Tamaris-Centre d’art in la Seyne-sur-Mer and at SOMA Museum of modern Art in Seoul.
In much the same way as the haiku moves us by the eloquence of its brevity, MariaManuela seeks through her pictures to convey situations, facial expressions and frames of mind by the most sparing and subtle of means. Her father had sought the same in rendering the haikus of the Japanese poet Issa (1763–1828)
Seeing cherry trees
in the blossomed parks of spring
strangers become friends.

Johan Persson

Exhibitions

2010
Hallands Konstförening, Halmstad/Sweden.
Designcenter 1021, Löderup/Sweden.
Galleri Bergström, Black&White, Båstad/Sweden.
Galerie Artima, Paris/France.
Galerie Jane Griffiths, Black&White, Val d'Isère/France
Art Anglais, Stockholm/Sweden, Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström.
Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström, Black&White, Malmö/Sweden.

2009
Galerie Jane Griffiths, Val d'Isère/France.
Art Elysées, Paris/France, Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström.
Art Project 12:th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Berlin/Germany.
Designcenter 1020, 2xPop, Löderup/Sweden
Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström, Snow Moon Flowers & Girls, Malmö/Sweden.
Vasa Konsthall, 5xPop, Göteborg/Sweden,
Galerie Jane Griffiths, 5xPop, Val d'Isère/France

2008
St-Art, Strasbourg/France. Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström.
Designcenter 1021, 5xPop, Löderup/Sweden.
Edsviks konsthall, 5xPop, Stockholm/Sweden.
Galerie de Lee, 5xPop, Seoul/South Korea.

2007
St-Art, Strasbourg/France. Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström.
SOMA Museum of Art, Les NouveauX pop, Seoul/South Corea.
Galleri Bergström, 5 x Nouveaux pop, Båstad/Sweden.
Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström, 5 x Nouveaux pop, Malmö/Sweden.
Art Paris/France, Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström.
Galerie Jane Griffiths, Val d'Isère/France.

2006
St-Art, Strasbourg/France. Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström.
Karlshamns Konsthall,Karlshamn/Sweden.
Gallerihuset, Copenhagen/Denmark.
Art FAB, Women in Europe, St.Tropez/France.
Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström, Malmö/Sweden.
SelArt Gallery, Stockholm/Sweden.
Galerie Salvador, Les NouveauX Pop, Paris/France.
Villa Tamaris Centre d'art, Les NouveauX Pop, Seyne-sur-Mer/France.
Gallerihuset, Copenhagen/Denmark.

2005
SelArt Gallery, Stockholm/Sweden.
Art Bruxelles/Belgium, Galerie Salvador.
Galleri Kim Anstensen, Göteborg/Sweden.
Bukowski Charity Auction, Stockholm/Sweden.
Stockholm Art Fair/Sweden, Galleri Eklund & Wallmark.

2004
Galerie Salvador, Paris/France.
Spitz Gallery, London/England, Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström.
Art Paris/France, Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström.
SelArt Gallery, Stockholm/Sweden.
Galleri Eklund & Wallmark, Stockholm/Sweden.
Cowparade, Stockholm/Sweden.
Stockholm Art Fair/Sweden, Galleri Eklund & Wallmark.

2003
Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström, Malmö/Sweden.
Gallery Fabien Fryns, Marbella/Spain.
Galleri Agardh & Tornvall, Stockholm/Sweden.
Tokyo Art Factory/Japan.
Galleri Jan Wallmark, Stockholm/Sweden.
Stockholm Art Fair/Sweden, Galleri Jan Wallmark.

2002
Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström, Malmö/Sweden.
Stockholm Art Fair/Sweden, Gallery Wolfsen.

2001
Swedish style in Tokyo at Las Chicas, Tokyo/Japan.
Galleri GKM Siwert Bergström, Malmö/Sweden.
Stockholm Art Fair/Sweden. Galleri Jan Wallmark.
Art Herning, Herning/Denmark, Gallery Wolfsen.

2000
Galleri Jan Wallmark, Stockholm/Sweden.
Art Copenhagen/Denmark, Gallery Wolfsen. Art fair.
Gallery Wolfsen, Aalborg/Denmark.
Stockholm Art Fair/Sweden, Galleri Jan Wallmark.
Liljevalchs Springshow, Stockholm/Sweden.

1998
"Angels in the Center", Stockholm/Sweden.

1997
"North American Indians", Peace in Mind festival, Stockholm/Sweden.
"Creative kilometre", Stockholm/Sweden.

1996
"Creative kilometre", Stockholm/Sweden.