The Italian/Dutch artist Sacha Valentine di Maio was born in 1974 in Rome as daughter of a Dutch mother and an Italian father. Her great- great grandfather, Henri van Lerven, was a painter and was also director of the ceramic factory “de Ram” in Arnhem, Holland.
Di Maio has passed through the well-established artistic lyceum Via di Ripetta in Rome and after that she continued her study in the famous Istituto per l’arte e il restauro “Palazzo Spinelli” in Florence and in London. She specialised in aesthetic restore and antique ceramics.

In 1997 she had her own artgallery in Florence. In 2002 she started to expose her work and she also took part in collective and individual exhibitions. She contributed for the Premio Firenze 2003 and 2004 and for the Premio Italia 2003 and 2006. She won the first prize with her painting “La otra Mirada”, from which the museum Capraia e Limite in Florence has obtained the ownership.

Because she is interested in her mothers homeland she moves to Arnhem in Holland to learn the language and lose herself in the Dutch culture.
Sacha’s paintings represent her past and the today. On the one hand we see masks of the Italian Comedia dell’ arte, full of Italian influences, on the other hand etchings of windmills, so typical for the Dutch landscape.