Serban (or "Sherban") Epuré was born in Romania in 1940. He trained in electronics, then went on to become a professional artist and painter in the 1960s. His work was subsequently included in an exhibition entitled Romanian Art Today, held at the Richard Demarco Gallery during the Edinburgh Festival in 1971. In an article for Leonardo magazine published in 2006, Epuré described his experience as an artist struggling to survive in Romania during the 1970s, and the decision to emigrate. He moved to the United States in 1980 and subsequently participated in the New York Digital Salon, SIGGRAPH and many other digital art shows.

From the late 1960s onwards, Epuré's art developed in two main strands, which he called S-Bands (or Sherban's Bands) and Meta-Phorms (derived from Meta+Metaphor+Forms). He began using an Apple Macintosh in 1985, but was well aware of the limitations of the technology available at that time. Phoenix Bird was created in 1994-1996 and is an example of a Meta-Phorm, which the artist describes as "the visual appearance of an abstract creative proposition".

In the catalogue of the 1971 exhibition in Edinburgh, Demarco wrote that "Epuré is that rare bird, the mathematician and the poet in one".