The media titan and artist known for her emotionally charged portraits of extraordinary women is launching two exhibitions this March. Catch her work at Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary (March 19–23) where she shows with Avant Gallery, and at Holiday House Wellington (March 4–May 3, 2026) where she unveils her new series of oils on linen, ‘Characters’, her largest-scale paintings to date. More than ever before, they blur the line between beauty and mystery and take you on a journey where storytelling and art become one. In the Q&A below, Niro reflects on the influences that shaped her visual language, and what inspired her new series of paintings. Hint: It has a lot to do with her life in Palm Beach!

You grew up in Romania in a family where creativity was a way of life. How did your early years shape who you are today as an artist?

I grew up among extraordinarily successful creative people – my uncle Toma Caragiu was a legendary actor of both film and theatre, my mother Matilda Caragiu was a Member of the Romanian Academy, authored 19 books, had a weekly TV show on language and a weekly column in the Romanian equivalent of the New Yorker, among many other achievements. My aunt Geta Caragiu was a brilliant sculptor whose work is in museums all over Europe. I grew up fast among them, as if life was pushing me forth from the earliest age.

I was speaking perfectly at age 2, read at age 3, finished Mark Twain’s novels at age 4, wrote poetry and prose (some published in literary magazines) and started painting seriously at 8. My aunt enrolled me in private classes with a renowned figurative expressionist painter, between ages 8 and 14, and she also spent a lot of time with me in her sculpture studio, teaching me how to figure draw and sculpt – to this day there is a bust of me on a marble pedestal in our family garden in Bucharest that I made under her exacting supervision (and help) when I was 10. When I turned 6, she gifted me three shelves of books on the lives and oeuvre of the most important artists of all time, which I devoured. I won two national art prizes at ages 14 and 15, one was for a work on glass and the other for an oil on paper. Geta was beyond disappointed when I chose to become an actress, following in my uncle Toma’s footsteps. Even so, she snuck me in as a guest student into figure drawing and painting classes at the Fine Arts College where she taught, so I was able to pursue my passion for art as well as my acting studies and graduated with an MA. I had finished high school at 17, we were on an accelerated track that worked wonders for gifted students, I wish we had that here, it is an amazing, beautiful challenge — yes, you have classes non-stop, including Saturdays, but you are able to became versed in more than one art and step into your future faster, and be extraordinarily prolific. Not to mention the built-in work ethic. That is a trend that has defined my life. I am a relentless omni-creative and would not have it any other way.

Your figures have a very specific look. Where did that come from?

I have conceived hundreds of fashion covers for the magazine I created in 2002, The Daily Front Row. IMG was my backer and they had the most powerful modeling agency in the world, one floor up from my offices. I had the unique opportunity to meet the most glorious models of our time from the very start of their careers, and they became my muses. Their beauty in that moment in time when they were in their teens, nature’s purest work of art, was otherworldly. It’s as if a light shone on them as they glided in slow motion through the air around them, mesmerizing everyone in their path. Then and there, I decided that portraits are what I will paint for the rest of my life. While in the many years past I had painted landscapes, still life, architectural treasures, once these girls stepped into my life it was like a vision came to me, a certain look, a certain style of portraiture that became my signature. Like my Daily, which magazine legend Graydon Carter once called “the most original magazine to come out in decades,” my portraits came to me in a uniquely formative way.

Your Models series focuses on people before fame or transformation. Why is that moment important to you?

It’s impossible. You marvel at it, you treasure every second of it, because it is fleeting. It’s a sublime light that is only shed on a human briefly. That’s what I mean about a moment in time. Beauty continues throughout life, but this moment is intangible, a divine whisper.

About a Girl started with a chance meeting. What stayed with you from that experience?

I met a beautiful 10-year-old named Jacqueline in the South of France, where my husband and I spend many summers. She often had dinner with her grandmother at La Colombe d’Or, a place we frequented constantly. Over time we began speaking and eventually became friends.

Her home was set on a cliff that opened into a wild garden filled with animals. There was a large white dog, birds, a turtle, and a parrot who repeated one phrase, Pas possible! There was an innocence and sadness about her magnificent face, a loneliness that made me want to draw her from the first moment I met her. I thought about her often and painted her constantly. I could have painted only Jacqueline for a year, but my gallerist insisted I widen the series. Parts of her story remain private, but she became a deep source of inspiration.

Your work suggests that beauty isn’t just about how someone looks. How do you think about beauty?

Beauty moves and it is everywhere around us, both in people and in places. You just need to have eye to see. You feel it most intensely because you know it never stays still. It shifts through life, appearing in different forms. That early phase has a particular clarity. It is difficult to explain and impossible to hold onto.

What do you hope happens when someone really lives with one of your portraits?

One of my collectors told me that my painting lifted her when she felt low and reflected her joy when she was happy. It became central to her home and in some ways to her life. Portraits are not passive objects. They are a person who forever looks you in the eye, and every day shares with you a new sensation, a new meaning, a new answer.

You’ve lived in so many creative capitals. What feels most inspiring about your life and studio now?

For many years I moved between Paris, Milan, London, Florence, and New York during runway seasons. I lived in Paris and spent summers on the Côte d’Azur. That rhythm shaped me.

Now I live in Palm Beach, where light defines everything. For part of the year my garden becomes my studio. The rest of the time I work in a bright room in my home with cathedral ceilings and the ocean breeze sifting trough the open windows. I’ve never been more inspired than I am now. The people I meet here are true characters, in the best sense of the word – unique faces, unique minds, and a unique poise. I see them, and I come back to my studio with inspiration flowing through every piece of my being. This is how my ‘Characters’ series was born. I feel very deeply that my Palm Beach years will be my most prolific as an artist and as such, my happiest. Learn more at https://avantgallery.com/collections/brandusa-niro