Mirela Patras
I paint what changes in us quietly.
I paint the searching, the restlessness and the stillness, the dreaming and the joy.
I am the engineer who measured walls and the woman who chose to paint on them.
I am the flower that opens slowly, layer after layer of light.
Every canvas is a petal of who I am.
Enter
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
- 2026Mirabilis Hortus Galeria 9, Brașov
- 2025Portrait of a Woman Form Art Galleries, Bucharest
- 2024 – 2025Mirabilis Hortus · Night of Museums Banca de Cultură Apollonia, Brașov
- 2024Inner Nature · Night of Museums Art Tower, Brașov
- 2024Tempus Vernum Galeria 9, Brașov
- 2023Winter at the Castle Hunedoara
- 2023Earth · Food Wave project Banca de Cultură Apollonia, Brașov
- 2023White Night of the Galleries Brașov
- 2023Ia Românească / Romanian Blouse ARCUB, Bucharest
- 2023Oxymoron · Blue Biennale ’23 Opera Brașov / Kron Art
- 2023Flowers National Museum of Geology, Bucharest
- 2023Fusion Art Noblesse Palace, Bucharest
- 2023Night of Museums Banca de Cultură Apollonia, Brașov
Education
- 2026 – presentPainting Tiberiu Brediceanu School of Arts and Crafts, Brasov
- 2022 – 2025Oil painting Magda Vacariu Art School, Brasov
- 2011 – 2013Master’s degree Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest
- 2007 – 2011Bachelor’s degree, Civil Engineering Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest
Award
- Nov 20231st place, “Earth” Local art contest, Food Wave project, Brașov Metropolitan Agency
Paintings & drawings
Charcoal, soft pastels and mixed media on paper.
Acquisitions & commissions
For prices, availability, studio visits or a commissioned painting, write directly. Every message is answered personally.