Mara Palena (Maria Libera Palena 1988) lives and works in Milan, Italy. Her aesthetics has been influenced by her formation in the fashion industry, where she worked side by side with the most influent fashion stylists of the industry. Her photographic work is the result of a montage of photographs, contact sheets and text mostly around the themes of identities and memories. Her visual research relies on the use of various artistic medium and installations. Palena’s work has been exhibited in several collective shows, her first solo show was hosted by Twenty14 in 2016. Her work has been part of LA Photomonth 2017 and showed at Lucie Foundation Los Angeles.
“Around the 340 b.c. a work entitled “Nicomachean Ethics” in which Aristotle expressed the concept of virtue and precisely the virtuous man. Despite the changes operated in the technological age, the human virtue remains the only element of nature that blends with art. Also the physical traits of each one of us speak of our natural preparations, Mara has eyes that capture, that see the invisible, that elaborate images and combine them to create new realities. If the world is how we perceive it, the world of Mara is an artistically unique reality.” Patrizia Ferrante
