Maria Kriara is a visual artist. She a PhD Candidate and graduate of the School of Architecture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

She has held three solo exhibitions: ‘The Quarry and the Encyclopédistes’ (DYNAMO, Thessaloniki, 2011), ‘Cogito(.) or “I think, therefore I am... a Rhinoceros”’ and ‘The Pawnshop’ (CAN Christina Androulidaki Gallery, Athens, 2014 and 2017). Her works have been shown at international exhibitions, museums, and institutions, such as the National Library of Greece - Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, the Benaki Museum, the Kunstverein Herdecke, the Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Cinematography - Greek Film Archive, the Institute for the Development of Emerging Art / I.D.E.A., Artissima, the Tinguely Museum, ReMap KM, Drawing Now Paris, the State Museum of Contemporary Art, the Venice Biennale of Architecture, a.o.
In 2018 she received the ArtWorks Stavors Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship Award. Within the framework of her collaboration with SuKu architects, she has received distinction in the 10th Biennale of Young Greek Architects (2020), 3rd Prize in the Architecture Ideas Competition "Regeneration of the area of OSE Kozani Rail Station" (2018), Honourable mention in the International Design Competition “COOK8” (2018).

She teaches visual arts at the School of Architecture of the University of Ioannina.