Mira Maodus (b. 1942), Serbia

Mira Maodus is a French artist of Serbian-Russian origin, living in Belgrade, Paris and Tokyo. She was born in October 1942 in an Italian military camp in Metka (in the Balkans), where her mother had fled. Her mother, Sofija Tesla, was the granddaughter of the inventor Nikola Tesla.

Educated in Belgrade, she went out into the world to develop her artistic talent. Maodus studied painting at the School of Applied Arts in Frankfurt (1965-1968), the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice (1969-1972) and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure in Paris (1972-1975). She received a master's degree from the University of Milan in 1978 for her thesis on the Bologna School in the 17th century - Guido Reni, Annibale Carracci and Guercino.

She spent seven years in Japan, where she studied calligraphy as an art form. After an initial figurative period in Paris inspired by Matisse's fauvisme, Maodus came into her own as a contemporary artist. Surrendering to the automation of rhythmic strokes, she began to create unique, abstract compositions with letters, words, signs and numbers, blending them into intense, colourful images with multiple meanings.

Since 1973 she has participated in solo and group exhibitions in France, Serbia, Japan, Italy, Great Britain. Switzerland and the United States. She is a member of ULUS (Association of Visual Artists of Serbia), La Maison des Artistes in France and the Japanese art group Sha-Ji-Tsu. Her works are exhibited at the National Museum in Belgrade and the Miyagi Museum of Art in Sendai, Japan.

​For almost fifty years Mira Maodus lived and worked in  Atelier 11 - the last studio of Cité Falguière. A mythical place that consecrated the golden age of the Ecole de Paris.

In August 2021, the atelier was passed to the Association L'AiR Arts to become an International Arts Research Residency, continuing welcoming artists and cultural professionals from all over the world.