Maria Kriara was born in 1982 in Heraklion (Crete). Departing from an obsession with painting, art history and the history of ideas, her artistic practice constitutes a form of research into the relevance and possible interconnections between images and stories that, despite their different origins, belong to a collective cultural pool. Based on a predefined design protocol and the almost fundamental premise that any form of representation ― going beyond its original context and the intentions of its creator ― may represent more than those for which it was intended, Kriara’s work attempts a series of logical manipulations, as well as imaginary links, in order to raise suspicions about the identity of the creator, the narrative consistency of the fragments, and the cultural burden and boundaries of representations as subject interpretations of reality. Solo exhibitions: “The Quarter and Encyclopedists” (Dynamo, 2011), “Cogito (.) or I think I am…a Rhinoceros “,” The Pawnshop “(CAN Christina Androulidaki Gallery, 2014, 2017). Her works have been exhibited at the Institute for the Development of Emerging Art, the Tinguely Museum, at Venice Architecture Biennale, at Thessaloniki Contemporary Art Biennale, ReMap4, the State Museum of Contemporary Art, and others.