Born in Bucharest, Romania in 1955, artist Aida Tomescu has been based in Sydney since 1980. She earned a Diploma of Visual Arts in 1977 from the Bucharest Institute of Fine Arts, and completed postgraduate studies at the City Art Institute, Sydney College of Advanced Education, in 1983.

Tomescu has presented over 40 solo exhibitions and participated in group shows in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK. She has won several prestigious awards presented by the Art Gallery of New South Wales — the Dobell Prize for Drawing (2003), the Wynne Prize (2001) and the Sulman Prize (1996) — and received the inaugural LFSA Arts 21 Fellowship at Melbourne’s Heide Museum of Modern Art (1996). Her work is held in the collections of major art museums, including National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; QAGOMA, Brisbane; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand; and the British Museum, London.