Biografia
Rosa Maria UNDA SOUKI is born in Caracas in 1977, in a family in which arts have always played a fundamental role. Her maternal grandfather, Lebanese, became very young the owner of the first movie-theatre in a country town in Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Her maternal grandmother, daughter of the Brazilian poet Ataliba Lago, was an actress and a pianist. Her mother, a Languages teacher, gave her the taste for cultural diversity and language musicality: Spanish, English and Portuguese… Her father was an avant-garde 60-70’s Venezuelan architect and intellectual. He was one of the artistic directors of the famous multimedia show Imagen de Caracas, presented in 1968 in the Venezuelan capital. In her childhood, her father introduced her to the 20th century’s ‘leading artists’, intellectual’s works, literature, musical popular and classical culture from Brazil and Latin-America. He was the one who helped her plunge into the marvellous world of huge drawing boards, Chinese ink, coloured pencils, paper, rulers and compass. Working tools for him but magical objects for her. He used them in his daily work; she took them in secret to make her first art experiences.
At the age of 16, she was accepted into the Fine Arts Armando Reveron Institute of Caracas (IUESAPAR), and studied with, among others, Luis Perez-Oramas, Sandra Pinardi, Luis Lizardo, Consuelo Mendez, Luis Alberto Hernandez and Luis Eduardo Cabreras. As a freshman in 1994, Rosa Maria was awarded the IUESAPAR Poetry Contest First Prize. In 1999, she graduated with highest honour, and she moved to Brazil the next year to study a Master of Arts and Image Technology in the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Studying mainly Photography and Video, she obtained in 2002 her Master’s degree summa cum laude with a publication recommendation for her thesis.
She moved to France in 2004 with her husband, a PhD Law student in the Sorbonne University. The same year, she won the First Painting Prize of the Prix Signatures (Galerie Siret, Jardins du Palais Royal, Paris), contest created in 1959 with the support of Culture Minister André Malraux. This award was the beginning of a dynamic career during which her work obtained European recognition. In 2010, after a first exhibition at the Picot-Le Roy Gallery, the House-Museum Federico García Lorca in Grenade dedicated to her a solo exhibition devoted to the poet’s houses. In 2011, she participated at the 56th Salon d’Art Contemporain de Montrouge (Montrouge Contemporary Arts Salon) and received the Special Prize from the Jury, presided by Antoine de Galbert, Founder and President of the Maison Rouge, and composed by Contemporary Art prominent figures, such as, among others, Stéphane Corréard, Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr, Laurent Le Bon, Jules Maeght and Marc-Olivier Wahler.
In November 2011, Rosa Maria holds at Palais de Tokyo her exhibition called Expropriation, as a Salon de Montrouge prize winner, and as one of the artists representing France at the Young European Creation Travelling Biennale (2011-2013).
Between December 2013 and January 2014, she exposed her most recent work “At the corner of Londres and Allende Street” at the Institut Français of Spain in Madrid. Supported by The Frida Kahlo Museum - Casa Azul in Mexico, the project covers the story of Frida Kahlo’s house in Coyoacán. In February 2014, Rosa Maria was awarded with the Foundation Colas Prize to create an independent painting on Frida Kahlo's home made exclusively for the Foundation. Also in 2014, her work was indicated for the Canson® Prize 2014 by Rebeca Lamarche-Vadel, (Palais de Tokyo curator ).
Rosa Maria lives and works between Brazil, France and Spain.
