Mini Me

Mara Zota is an artist born in Sibiu, Romania

and studied at the Essen Academy of Fine Arts in Markus Vater’s class.  

“My practice operates at the intersection of post-feminist critique, material culture and the visual semiotics of constructed femininity. I work primarily with oil on canvas and mixed-media textile experiments, exploring how femininity functions not as an innate characteristic but as a culturally produced performance – one that is learnt, repeated and enforced through image, material and the gaze.

At the heart of my work is the figure of the Chrome Dollie, a series of archetypal avatars whose hyper-aestheticised surfaces conceal the ideological structures that give rise to them. Drawing on Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, these figures embody femininity as a quotation: as the repeated staging of cultural scripts that make the constructed appear natural. The chrome surface—reflective, impenetrable, seductive—functions simultaneously as armour and a trap. It deflects the gaze whilst simultaneously affirming its power.

The recurring presence of lace in my work introduces a second material register. Historically coded as feminine, domestic and decorative, lace is a material that requires extraordinary labour whilst appearing effortless. In feminist semiotics, following Laura Mulvey’s concept, such materials function as fetish objects—fragments that channel desire whilst concealing the conditions of their production. In my paintings and textile works, lace and chrome exist in deliberate collision: the ornamental meets the industrial, the intimate meets the impenetrable.

My more recent work extends this investigation into an experimental material practice. By scanning, manipulating and assembling textiles – lace, crochet, chain stitch, chrome-sprayed fabric – I explore how materials carry gendered meaning and how this meaning can be destabilised through the process.

Underlying

it all is the virgin-whore dichotomy, the fundamental binary through which Western patriarchal culture has historically organised and constrained female identity. My archetypal Chrome Dollies do not dissolve this binary. They multiply it, lay bare its mechanisms and reject its logic. Each archetype – The Good Girl, The Man-Eater, The Kawaii Doll, The Party Doll – occupies a different position within this constructed spectrum and reveals not individual character, but collective cultural projection.

My work offers no resolution. It offers recognition.”

Mara

has been part of the Studenten Kunstmarkt since February 2022.

2021

Applicant’s scholarship from the Essen University of the Arts

2022

SKM exhibition in Hamburg at stilwerk

2023 – May

Stroke Art Fair, Munich

2023 – July

“Schneeball – A Masked Ball as a Work of Art”

2023 – August

‘LabEurope’ – residency grant in Osnabrück

2023 – December

‘Graustufen’

2024 – January

‘4 Shades of Grey’

2024 – April

‘ArtArtist’

2025 - February

“Nature and Vitality” at Raum55

2025 - March–July

“Young Blood 4.0” at the Art Safari Museum, Bucharest

2025 - March–June

“Karyatiden” at Galerie

Gublia

2025 - June

“Where is my mind” at Galerie Obrist, Essen

, 2025 - July

“the only way out is through” at Neuer Kunstverein, Wuppertal

, 2025 - September

Academy Positions at Berlin Art Week

, 2025 – September:

Bachelor of Fine Arts with a grade of 1.0 from the Essen

University of Fine Arts

2026 – March

: Nomination for the “Junge Positionen NRW” sponsorship award

2026

Mara has been part of the Studenten Kunstmarkt since February 2022.