Maruska Lebrun, has lived in the U.A.E. for almost 30 years now. Her life experiences are reflected through her artwork, presented across several media, which displays the many facets of life. Maruska was born in Prague, Czech Republic, and moved to Holland when she was still an infant. Her interest in art started when she was very young and by the age of fifteen, was asked by the Art Department of her college to start a full page cartoon for the school's magazine.

When Maruska left school she travelled extensively across six continents, allowing her to sample cultures from all around the world, taking along with her many photographs and memories. Today she makes use of her large photographic collection as a source of inspiration for many of her artworks.

Maruska moved to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates in January 1979. In 1981 she then moved to Deira, Dubai. It was not long before she then moved to Rashidiya in 1984, then very much on the outskirts of Dubai, following the birth of her eldest son in 1983. In 1985, the young family grew with the arrival of a second son.

Now that Maruska's children are working in the U.K. she continues to reside in Dubai, devoting much of her time to art - now that she has retired from the school run and after-school activites!

Maruska Lebrun has been an artist since 1991, turning professional in 2001. Her original work has found itself in private collections all around the world.

Maruska Lebrun initiated her return to artwork through silk painting in 1990. The origins of most of her work came from still life and creative drawing. As time progressed she drifted towards photography in order to capture her topics for later work. It was during this time that she reacquinted herself with her old photographs taken on her travels. These would serve her later on as a source of inspiration for her Arican themed work.

A few years after starting to paint on silk, she turned to aquarelle as a medium of expression. It was then that she developped her flair that she would use in her Arabian themed artworks, painting many landscapes from the Liwa through to Musandam, passing through the Hajar mountains. She has also painted arabian wildlife, principally camels and falcons - subjects for which she has become reknown, as well as traditional arabian architecture.

It took a while before she decided to explore other media, and in turn she took up pastel as a portrait medium to explore the lives of cultures from around the world. Oil painting then became another of Maruska's talents, as she retraced French art and visited many of the actual sites where famous artists sat to paint. For example, among the oil paintings you can see "Giverny" and "Les Nympheas", reincarnations of Claude Monet's Garden series that she produced after visiting the same gardens in Giverny where the French artist lived 110 years ago.