Maria Tribe

Maria Tribe was born in the early 1970s in Brighton, where she spent her childhood. She took a foundation course in Art & Design at Hastings College and a Fine Art degree at East London University, and now makes a successful living as an artist. She describes her artwork as "visual diaries" based on journeys ranging from walks along the Thames to trips around the world. She has travelled extensively in South East Asia, Australia, India, the Caribbean and in Southern Europe. She derives her inspiration from a passion for water and the sea, the luminous colours of underwater seascapes, the architecture of Barcelona and Turkey, the palaces and temples of Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore and the landscape. The whole process of making drawings and journals, taking photographs and collecting is also central to her work. Maria Tribe works mainly in oil for the luminous colour and tactile qualities that oil paint provides, but also uses some elements of screenprint, which allow her to integrate drawings, text and photographic imagery into her paintings. Maria Tribe has exhibited her work in galleries in the United Kingdom and abroad, and has recently shown in London and Oxford as well as in Paris and Dubai. She was a prize-winner at the Europ'Art in Paris in 2002.