Simona Milea
Realist Artist based in Western Australia
Simona Milea was born in Romania and she studied painting, sculpture and technical drawing at the School of Fine Arts in Constanta, Romania. During this time Simona exhibited paintings and sculptures in local galleries. Simona studied and completed an engineering degree at the Institute of Construction Bucharest, and worked as a surveyor for nine years.
When the walls of communism fell, Simona travelled to the United States where while studying for Master and Doctoral degrees, she also illustrated children’s books.
She returned to post-communist Romania where she discovered orphanages full of neglected children infected with needle-acquired HIV/AIDS. She became the co-founder and director of a charity which planned to move the children into group homes for a better life.
In 1998 one of the charity’s sponsors from Australia became her husband. To years later she came to Australia, where she continued another cottage care project through Kingsway College.
In Australia she did a Postgraduate Diploma of Science and Information Services at Edith Cowan University. This eventually led to her work with the WA Parliamentary Library.
After a hiatus of 25 years, Simona says that the beauty and colonial character of the early Parliament House façade combined with the contemporary architectural design of the eastern façade and encouragement from her colleagues started her painting again.
Simona was commissioned different artwork and portraits and also drew several portraits as departure gifts to inspirational staff who served in the Parliament for over twenty years.
In 2016 Simona was the first artist in Western Australia to have an open exhibition at the Parliament House. “Life inside Parliament House” Exhibition included a number of her artworks, generously gifted by Simona, which hang permanently in Parliament House and others artwork kindly on loan for that exhibition from former Members of Parliament or staff.
In 2019 she won the prestigious Julie Michael Overall Winner Award and other awards in the following years.
In the meantime, Simona continue to paint portraits, landscapes and illustrations at home while ten of her watercolours hang in the walls of the Parliament.