Mara Zaslove is the Digital & Photography Artist Spotlight winning artist for the month of April 2018. She is a Southern California based photographer. Her "Lifecycle" Series explores the beauty in aging by combining photographs of an aging body with elements from the natural world, highlighting the connectedness that all living things possess.

Mara's Solo Art Exhibition will be featured on the website for the entire month of April 2018. The gallery will promote Mara and her work on the Fusion Art website, individual online press releases to hundreds of outlets, email blasts, in online event calendars, art news websites and through the gallery’s extensive social media outlets.  Fusion Art's objective is to promote the Artist Spotlight winning artists, worldwide, to art professionals, gallerists, collectors and buyers.

Please read Mara's Biography and Artist Statement below as she describes her history, inspiration and process in her own words. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see her exhibition.

If you are interested in purchasing any of these award-winning pieces, or to see more of Mara's work, please visit her website.

Also, please visit Fusion Art’s YouTube Channel to see Mara's Solo Art Exhibition Video.

Thank you to all the artists who participated in the Artist Spotlight competition and congratulations to Mara and the other Artist Spotlight winning artists.

Mara Zaslove Biography

After a career as a Marriage, Family and Child Therapist, Mara Zaslove was gifted her father’s 35 millimeter Canon film camera and began her exploration into the world of photography. Within a few years, the digital age exploded and she started experimenting with this, then, ‘new’ technology. Still a lover of both processes, she has harnessed her innate sense of composition to capture images that exude emotion.

The images from her series, ‘Lifecycle’ have been traveling the U.S. and abroad in multiple gallery shows including L.A. Artcore, ‘Bold Beauty’ at Pilates and Art in Echo Park, Biscailuz Gallery, Soho Gallery in NYC, Tag Gallery, Los Angeles Center of Photography, Groundspace Project, theTopanga Canyon Gallery as well as PH21 in Budapest Hungary and the 8th Julia Margaret Cameron Award held in Berlin.  A ‘Showcase Portfolio’ of her work has recently been published in the Shadow and Light Magazine.

As well as acting as a moderator for several artist critique groups through the Los Angeles Artist Association, her passion for photography has afforded her the opportunity to teach classes for children at a variety of institutions and act as a volunteer photographer for the Inner City Arts program. In addition, she has held the position of Staff Photographer for Diavolo: an internationally renowned dance company based in Los Angeles. Most recently, she has been working alongside the choreographer and founder of Dancessence, documenting their newest bodies of work.

Mara Zaslove received a Bachelors from U.C. Berkeley, a teaching credential at U.C.L.A. and her Masters and MFT from Cal. State, Northridge. Born in Burbank, California, she has traveled extensively in the U.S and abroad and is now living and working in Santa Monica. A selection of her work can be viewed on her website at www.marazaslove.com.

Mara Zaslove Artist Statement

Sometimes, aging can feel like a disability. An affliction that is unavoidable, like the terrible two’s and adolescence, but with a finality that can’t be overlooked. I have bared witness to how those before me have lived out their lives and recently lost my mother. Her passing has triggered somatic reactions that are unanticipated and shifted my relationship to aging.

For the past several years, I have been working with an 88-year-old muse and discovered a surprising revelation: there is beauty in aging. She is in her 88th year and is both mentally and physically active. She is in a loving relationship and has a multitude of people who care about her. Her face is etched by wrinkles but she carries herself with an elegance that has people taking notice when she walks down the street. She is a stylish dresser that belies her age.

When I initiated this series, I was drawn to Inge for her incredible presence and vitality. She defies the traditional ‘aging’ box in both her appearance and physicality. For my series, Don’t bring me no Rocking Chair, I have combined photographs of an aging body with elements from the natural world, highlighting the connectedness that all living things possess.
My work is not intended to answer questions, but rather serve as a way for individuals to reconsider themselves. The project becomes an intimate space to re-evaluate one’s context of themselves in regards to their immediate social circle, their society and the world. I am hopeful that these photographs will stand as a metaphor to demystify aging and encourage the viewer to continue to embrace the ‘joy’ in everyday living.

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