Mara Duvra is a visual artist, writer, and curator. Her research-based practice combines photography, poetry, and video to create installations that explore stillness and interiority as critical modes of self-study. Duvra’s current body of work, Tending: meditations on interiority and blackness, uses poetic and ephemeral imagery to understand Blackness beyond resistance or public identity. Photographing landscapes, interiors, and the body Duvra’s visual practice explores shifts in proximity through moments laid bare / unfolding the vulnerability of being present / uncovering a shared intimacy.
This work is about the quiet and quotidian, the still and meditative, and considers possibilities for Black subjectivity that center tenderness.
Duvra is originally from Maryland and received a BA in studio art and psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an MFA in studio art from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her work has been featured in local galleries such as Soo Visual Arts Center, Public Functionary, and Yeah Maybe, and she has held artist residencies at the Soap Factory and the White Page. Duvra is currently an instructor of painting and drawing at Saint Paul Academy and Summit School
