Mirela Patras

Painting as a way of understanding the world

For Mirela Patras, painting is a daily necessity and a way of understanding the world. She began drawing as a child, sketching fashion designs that her mother, a seamstress, turned into real clothes.

She trained as a civil engineer in Bucharest and worked in the field before moving to Brașov with her family. There she studied oil painting with Magda Vacariu, an experience that shaped her technique and her confidence as an artist. She is currently continuing her studies in painting at the Tiberiu Brediceanu School of Arts and Crafts in Brașov.

Her work follows emotional change and human experience. She draws on nature, especially flowers, on family and close relationships, and on the play of light and shadow. Flowers stand for growth and inner transformation, and darkness becomes a place of renewal.

She prefers oil paint and large canvases, and sees each painting as a collaboration in which the work slowly finds its own voice. Her paintings are in private collections in Romania, Italy, the USA and China.

Artistic influences

Georgia O’Keeffe taught her to look at flowers from a different perspective. By enlarging them until their organic forms approach abstraction, O’Keeffe made her see each flower as a universe of its own: a space of shapes, colours and details that, seen up close, reveals an unexpected world. In her own oil paintings, Mirela explores this richness of floral form and the possibility of conveying emotions and inner transformation through petals, light and colour.

In her portraits she is interested in the expressiveness of the face and in how the brush can render a person’s presence. John Singer Sargent is a reference point for the spontaneity of his brushstrokes, his economy of detail and the way light shapes the expressiveness of a portrait.

From Vincent van Gogh she is drawn to the energy of visible brushstrokes, the rhythm of line and the expressive force of colour. His post-impressionist influence is a point of comparison for a kind of painting in which the brush does not only describe, but conveys emotion.

She is also inspired by the way Gustav Klimt approaches the relationship between femininity and floral motifs.

Solo exhibitions

• Oct 2026

  Connections

  Banca de Cultură Apollonia, Brașov

• Feb – Mar 2026

  Identity Petals

  Inspiratio Gallery, Brașov

• Oct 2025

  Bloom

  White Night of the Galleries, Catherine’s Gate, Brașov

• Oct 2024

  Life

  White Night of the Galleries, The Tower of the Arts, Brașov

• Oct 2024

  Acceptance

  White Night of the Galleries, Brașov

Group exhibitions

• 2026
  Mirabilis Hortus Galeria 9, Brașov
• 2025
  Portrait of a Woman Form Art Galleries, Bucharest
• 2024 – 2025
  Mirabilis Hortus · Night of Museums Banca de Cultură Apollonia, Brașov
• 2024
  Inner Nature · Night of Museums Art Tower, Brașov
• 2024
  Tempus Vernum Galeria 9, Brașov
• 2023
  Winter at the Castle Hunedoara
• 2023
  Earth · Food Wave project Banca de Cultură Apollonia, Brașov
• 2023
  White Night of the Galleries Brașov
• 2023
  Ia Românească / Romanian Blouse ARCUB, Bucharest
• 2023
  Oxymoron · Blue Biennale ’23 Opera Brașov / Kron Art
• 2023
  Flowers National Museum of Geology, Bucharest
• 2023
  Fusion Art Noblesse Palace, Bucharest
• 2023
  Night of Museums Banca de Cultură Apollonia, Brașov