Women Born of Imagination: The Majestic Portraits of Maria Paris

By: Chieloka Anadu

Most of the women in Maria Paris’s paintings do not exist. “They are born in my imagination and become characters with their own presence, personality and story,” she says. A French artist based in the UK, Paris focuses on portraiture, and specifically on portraits of African women, whom she paints to celebrate through beauty, elegance, strength, and dignity. Her work draws deeply on classical portraiture, particularly 18th-century painting, reinterpreting that elegance through contemporary African women and her own imagination, and creating what she describes as a dialogue between the past and the present.

The roots of that approach go back to her childhood. She has always loved museums and classical paintings, but growing up she noticed that African women were rarely represented in the beautiful, majestic portraits she admired. When Africa did appear, it was very often tied to slavery, suffering, poverty, or history seen through pain. “I wanted to create something different,” she says. In her own work, she wants African women to occupy “that beautiful, elegant and powerful space,” showing richness, femininity, imagination, and pride. Dreams, fashion, colours, fabrics, feathers, and historical clothing feed that vision too, along with anything that can carry a viewer somewhere between reality and imagination.

Her influences begin with the great portrait painters of the 18th century, whose elegance, clothing, poses, detail, and sense of grandeur she loves. But she is clear that she isn’t interested in reproducing the past: “What interests me is taking some of that visual language and bringing it into my own world.” She also enjoys discovering contemporary African and Black artists, noting the incredible diversity of voices and ways of representing African identity today. Ultimately, she says, she wants her paintings to remain recognisably her own.

Paris works mainly in painting on canvas, with portraiture at the centre of her practice. She pays particular attention to the face, expression, clothing, colour, and the decorative elements surrounding each figure, and enjoys experimenting with texture and with contrasts between highly detailed areas and lighter, more dreamlike passages. Technique, for her, exists to serve emotion: “I want the viewer to first feel the presence of the woman before thinking about how the painting was made.”

When creative blocks arrive, she doesn’t force the work. She steps away, observing, visiting exhibitions, looking at fashion, history, colours, and images, or simply living her life. Then an image will suddenly appear in her mind, and she knows she needs to paint it. “I’ve learned to trust that process,” she says. “Creativity comes back when you give it space.”

If her paintings could speak, she imagines the women saying: “Look at me. See my beauty, my dignity and my strength. Don’t define me through somebody else’s story.” She would also want them to say one more word: “Dream.” She loves the dreamlike quality of art and hopes viewers will leave reality for a moment and enter another world. She doesn’t want to dictate what anyone must feel; she wants each painting to open a door and let people create their own story.

Participating in the Anadu Art Fair is meaningful to Paris because it connects her work with Africa and with an international audience. As both an artist and a Guest Curator, she is glad to be part of something that creates opportunities for artists and brings different artistic voices together. Professionally, she wants her work to travel internationally and be seen by collectors, galleries, curators, and people who genuinely connect with it. Personally, showing the work in Lagos carries something deeper: her paintings celebrate African women, so seeing those images presented within Africa has a special meaning. She sees the fair not as a single exhibition but as another step in a much bigger artistic journey.

Follow Paris’ journey on Instagram: maria.p.official