“For attention is of the essence of our powers.You needn’t trouble about memory. That will take care of itself, but you must learn to live in the true sense. To pay attention is to live…”
– Louis Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats
Mar photographs as a way of paying attention. Working without a rigid framework or predetermined outcome, she follows moments intuitively, responding to what emerges in front of her rather than directing it. Mar is interested in photography’s ability to hold a singular intersection of perception and circumstance. Her photographs become a trace of an experience that can never occur in exactly the same way again, a fleeting alignment of presence, environment, and awareness that disappears as soon as it is lived. The work and the resulting images are rooted in observation, presence, and the unstable nature of lived experience; an awareness that no moment can ever be experienced in precisely the same way twice.
Mar’s early practice (and her most-known work) was centered on photographic sculpture, exploring how a two-dimensional medium could be reconfigured into geometric, three-dimensional objects.
Based in Durham, NC, she holds an MFA and has participated in residencies at Nes in Iceland, Vermont Studio Center, and Elsewhere Studios in Colorado. Her work has been exhibited across the U.S. and Canada. Mar has participated in multiple solo and group exhibitions at galleries and institutions across the United States and internationally.
Her photographs have appeared in more than 15 publications, including daily and weekly newspapers, and have been featured on four covers of a nationally distributed magazine. In 2017, her work was also published internationally in Iceview, an Icelandic artist publication.
Currently, Mar is teaching photography at Durham School of the Arts.
Aimless Light 