Mihaela Ionela Cimpeanu was born in 1981 in Baliesti, southeastern Romania, into a family of young Roma. Her father came from a family of brick-makers and became a construction worker. Her mother was unemployed.

She is the oldest of five children. When she was one, the family moved to Craiova. She attended the grammar school and then high school, where she discovered her gift for drawing. She then was admitted to the High School of Arts and graduated with the highest grades.

After graduation in 1999 she attended a public administration course. In the year 2000 she moved to Bucharest, where she attended a journalism course and specialised in press photography, later working at a newspaper in Bucharest, Curierul National, and as a painter at the Buftea Movie Studios. In 2001 she was admitted to the Faculty of Sculpture at the National Academy of Fine and Applied Arts, Bucharest, and is currently a Master’s degree student.

In 2003 she became member of the cultural organisation, Artisrroma.

She is currently working as a freelance photographer and as a teacher at “Ioan Socolescu” College of Architecture and the “AD Xenopol” Business School in Bucharest.

Tímea Junghaus