Ana Maria MICU (b. 1979, Botoșani, Romania) received her MFA from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca in 2004. Her works have been exhibited internationally, including at the 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2011 and the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest in 2022.
Working primarily in painting, MICU draws from her immediate surroundings and personal experience, bringing together multiple images and viewpoints within nonlinear compositions. Her works often depict what she describes as “minor acts of living”—everyday gestures, objects, plants, and fragments of domestic and studio life. Through sustained observation, MICU approaches painting as both a record of lived experience and a process of introspection, exploring the shifting relationship between the body, its surroundings, and the inner self. Her densely constructed compositions transform ordinary routines and spaces into contemplative images of attention, memory, and existence.