by Romina Ciulli e Carole Dazzi
The works of French artist Mira Maodus of Serbian-Russian origin are characterized by complex interactions between shapes and colors, overlapping signs and numbers, giving rise to truly visual narratives with dreamlike and vibrant atmospheres. Her research, in fact, focuses on the very essence of the artistic approach, aiming to free the constraints of the sign in a free and universal creative context. Her professional career, which has evolved from figurative to abstract, includes a fifty-year stint at Atelier 11 in Paris where, through various stories and testimonies, she was influenced by the legacy of artists like Amadeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine and Constantin Brancusi. Her works have been exhibited in galleries and exhibitions in countries such as Italy, France, Great Britain, the United States, China, Russia, Canada, and more. Let’s talk with the artist.
Your painting was initially influenced by German Expressionism and Matisse-inspired Fauvism, thus focusing on a more figurative structure. Later, you focused on the creative possibilities of form and color, seeking something profound that reflects on both personal and collective cultural dynamics. Can you tell us how this evolution occurred?
Paris profoundly transformed my path, taking me from figurative to abstract. Initially, I was strongly influenced by German Expressionism, but during my studies at the Venice Academy, an exhibition of Matisse and Derain’s work impressed me so much that I decided to move to Paris. I arrived to study at the Académie and stayed there for almost fifty years. There I saw major exhibitions of the Russian avant-garde, such as those dedicated to Nicolas de Staël and Natalia Goncharova, and I met artists still active today, such as André Lanskoy.
A decisive moment came when I read the correspondence between Van Gogh and Gauguin: those letters affected me so deeply that I began to transcribe fragments of them into my paintings, trying to transform the power of their words into color. My Parisian gallery owner, Jean Claude Riedel, encouraged this research by dedicating an exhibition to me. From there I also began to work on language, writing in my paintings in the language of my homeland, Cyrillic. The transition to abstraction however wasn’t immediate: for years figurative and abstract art coexisted. In fact, I continued to paint Fauvist landscapes and subway scenes for a Japanese gallery with which I had a contract, where my reference to German Expressionism was greatly appreciated. But at the same time, I deepened my research on letters, signs, and color.
Your experience in Japan, where you deepened your study of calligraphy as an art form, was crucial to your artistic journey. This resulted in a pictorial style in which words, ideograms, numbers and distinctive symbols from different cultures are transformed into harmonious lines and intense colors, giving rise to captivating, almost unreal narrative works. How does traditional and linguistic heritage serve as a vehicle for expressing a message?
Japan also had a significant influence. One day, in a museum cafe in Tokyo, I saw a work of Japanese calligraphy hanging on the wall. The great shodō masters write religious words or haiku with extraordinary strength and elegance. They dedicate their entire lives to the perfection of a single letter. At that moment I felt, perhaps subconsciously, that I too could do something similar with my Cyrillic letters: transform them through color, until they became not just signs, but images capable of expressing beauty.
For many years you had the honor of working in Atelier 11 at the Cité Falguière in Paris, a cultural hub of the time, which you also helped to preserve. Today, it has become a research center for the École de Paris, as well as a residence for artists from around the world. Here you were influenced by illustrious figures in the art scene who frequented this space in the past, including Soutine and Modigliani. The latter created Le cariatidi in this space. Can you tell us about this part of your life and how these artists influenced your artistic process?
I can’t call myself the last representative of the École de Paris, as some have written. My connection to that world was more subtle, almost mysterious. During my studies in Milan I collaborated on the Catalogue Raisonné of Modigliani’s drawings, an artist who has always fascinated me. I always recognized something familiar in his faces: they reminded me of Byzantine icons. Being of Orthodox origin, I grew up surrounded by those sacred images, and in his portraits, even his nudes, I always perceived a sort of veil of sacredness. Many years later I exhibited in Livorno, at the Giovanni Fattori Museum, and discovered that there is a Greek Orthodox church in the city. I wondered if he, too, had seen some icons in his youth. Perhaps it’s just a hunch, but certain connections seem to transcend time. Even in Paris the coincidences were surprising. I studied in Yankel’s studio, whose father Kikoïne was a friend of Soutine’s. To him, Soutine was almost an uncle.
At the Cité Falguière I later met an elderly lady who had worked in the Impasse bistro as a young man and who had known both Modigliani and Soutine. She told me that Modigliani was elegant and cultured, almost aristocratic, while Soutine was a wild man. Sometimes I wondered if there wasn’t already an invisible thread connecting me to them. The Cité Falguière atelier gave me a lot, though not without difficulty: it was the last historic atelier in Montparnasse and many coveted it. However, I was fortunate enough to meet Madame Rohal, widow of the sculptor Rohal, who allowed me to rent it. When, after almost fifty years the time came to leave it and return to my Belgrade, I strongly desired it to remain a place dedicated to art. After years of work, with the help of Silvia Pampaloni, a Livorno native like Modigliani, we managed to find the right people. Today the L’Air Arts association manages it as a residence for international artists and a study center for the École de Paris. And finally it has been recognized as a site of artistic interest by the Ile de France region. A goal we’ve been pursuing for decades. My determination perhaps comes from a Serbian word: inat. It’s difficult to translate: it means pride, obstinacy, and challenge. Perhaps it’s this inner strength that has guided my entire journey.
Speaking of Paris, in 2022 the retrospective Mira Maodus, le fil rouge di Montparnasse was held in Livorno, an exhibition aimed to retrace your career, from your figurative beginnings to abstraction, from expressive chromaticism to graphic automatism, often inspired by the poetry of great international artists such as Rimbaud, Verlaine, Quasimodo. How did the idea for this celebration come about?
It came about thanks to my curator Silvia Pampaloni, who had the idea of elebrating my eightieth birthday with the Celebrating Miramaodus project, involving galleries and museums in five countries around the world that have accompanied my artistic journey. Exhibitions were organized in Paris, Tokyo, Belgrade and Trebinje, thanks also to the collaboration of Gallery 73 in Belgrade and the 884 Art Gallery in Tokyo. The highlight of this celebration, however, was the major retrospective in Livorno, at the Giovanni Fattori Museum. Livorno, Modigliani’s birthplace, that deeply impressed me with its colors and warmth. I have remained deeply attached to this city.
Color is a key aspect of your work. Compositional harmony, in fact, is based on the integration of graphic elements and bright, vibrant hues, which help make these works vivid, intense, and full of life. How do you choose your colors? And are there any you prefer?
Regarding colors, I could tell a little story, perhaps a bit childish, but meaningful to me. The French painter Guillain Syroux, a dear friend from my Montparnasse days, told my gallery owner Jean Claude Riedel that I used too much red in my paintings. At the time I was still figurative and was painting the cycle of leaves on the Boulevard Montparnasse. I often went to the Adam shop to buy paints. The owner, in exchange for one of my paintings, would sell me tubes of oil paint. I’d choose yellow, blue, green, red… but when I got to the checkout, he always took the red off. My gallery owner had asked him not to sell it to me anymore. So I simply crossed the street and went to the shop across the street to buy it. Red remains my favorite color, along with orange: it gives painting a vitality that I feel is indispensable. But I don’t really plan the compositions, I just “feel” them. It’s hard to explain. A painting isn’t created in a day, sometimes it takes years, and slowly I understand what’s missing and what still needs to be included in the composition.
The exhibition held in Florence and titled La poetica del colore (2024) reflects on the intimate relationship between painting and poetry. Here, we also find an intense palette of colors with overlapping hues, capable of expressing the complex variety of human emotions, focusing not only on individual aspects, but also on the sense of collectivity of individuals themselves. And, in particular, two works best illustrate the exhibition: the polyptych “Homage to Dante Alighieri” and “Flying,” dedicated to the Serbian poet Jovan Ducìc. What was the goal of this project?
Poetry has been a part of my life since childhood: I learned to read at the age of four. My brother, who was eleven years older than me and studied in the city, always brought poetry books home, and I devoured them. They were often philosophical poems by Slovenian and Croatian authors. When I arrived in Belgrade, I discovered the great Serbian poets at school. Then, in Italy, I met very refined Italian poets, capable of opening up an entire world of light with a single word. Reading poetry is like entering another dimension: just one word, just one line. For me, poetry has always been more important than prose.
The life of poets, on the other hand, is almost always difficult: I also think of Dante, forced into exile. But Dante was not just a poet, he was also a prophet. That’s why I wanted to paint his prayer. I also drew inspiration for my paintings from the poetry of the Serbian poet Jovan Dučić. I grew up in a communist country, where religion was practically abolished. Dučić had written very spiritual poems, but this part of his work was unpublished in those years. I discovered it later, and it deeply affected me. After all, each of us has at least once in our lives asked heaven for help in moments of despair. In his verses I sensed a depth which truly touched me.
Finally, let’s talk about La mia bandiera (2025), a retrospective held in Pula, Istria, which explores themes of identity, memory and belonging through an expressive, symbolic language that recounts our everyday lives. Do you believe that painting can still be a tool for cultural reflection?
I’d never thought about it until recently. Lately, in Serbia, there was an almost anarchic movement where flags were burned. But I had the impression that that anarchy was somehow led by others. As a child, I lived through very difficult years, the painful transition from one regime to another: a period marked by many deaths and great trauma. Perhaps that’s why sudden changes scare me. For me a flag doesn’t represent identity so much as memory. And without memory, culture can’t exist.
Many artists have influenced you throughout your career. Besides those already mentioned, have there been others? And are there any names in the current art scene that you find interesting?
Aside from the artists I’ve already mentioned, I have to say that I don’t sense many influences among today’s artists. I have the impression that contemporary painting is at a sort of impasse. Today a painter’s success often depends on a patron, a foundation, or someone very wealthy who decides to support them, regardless of their talent. This is clearly evident even at auctions: what matters is not so much the beauty of a painting, but the signature of the artist who is supported by the market at that moment. Often, behind these gestures by major collectors, there isn’t an artistic choice but a financial investment. Art has become, in many cases, an object of speculation. At first, this almost took away my desire to paint. Then I understood something simple: I paint because I need to. Painting is my life, not a way to make money.
What else do you expect from your artistic future?
I have two or three female painters whom I consider true idols. One is Pan Yuliang, a Chinese artist who lived near me in Montparnasse and died in the 1970s. In the 1990s, a Chinese film company shot some scenes in my studio for a film about her life, and it was then that I truly discovered her story. It was a very difficult story: orphaned at the age of six, she was sold to a brothel as a slave. Until she was nine, she served tea, then she was forced to work there. At fourteen, a Chinese nobleman bought her and gave her the opportunity to study art in Europe, in Rome. She later settled in Montparnasse. Today her paintings are sold at auctions in Hong Kong for up to ten million dollars. Another artist I greatly admire is Natalia Goncharova. She arrived in Paris at the beginning of the twentieth century and came from a wealthy family. It’s said that when she went to restaurants, artists like Picasso would sit at her table because of the great respect they had for her. Yet, when she died, there were only four people at the Russian cemetery in Paris. Today, even a small painting of hers is worth millions. This makes me think that perhaps I too belong to the tradition of “cursed” painters, those whose glory came much later. But in reality, I don’t paint for glory. I paint because I wish I could create a painting which truly satisfies me. I haven’t succeeded yet, and that’s precisely why I continue to paint every day with the same passion.