Pavel Mára (*1951)

Pavel Mára is a Czech photographer who has been teaching at the Institute of Creative Photography (ITF) at the Silecian University in Opava since 1996. He studied camera and photography at the Film and TV Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), where he later also gave classes. In his work he focuses primarily on portrait and nude photography, while color is often the most prominent aspect of his artwork, with him being one of the first Czech photographers experimenting with color back in the 1970s. Mára’s photographs often near geometrical abstraction. His work has been acquired by many galleries – both at home and abroad – such as the National Gallery in Prague, Moravian Gallery in Brno, Museum Ludwig in Cologne or Galerie Municipale du Château d’Eau. Bálková is an artist and a photographer. She works with mixed media, combining classical elements of paintings, photographs, sculptures and installations with new media. She studied New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts (AVU) in Prague in the studios of Jiří David and Veronika Bromová, where she graduated in 2006. In her work she deals with human identity and its transformations, often focusing on female experience in particular. In 2005, Bálková was awarded the bi-annual award for art students. Her work was featured at Praguebiennale 3 in 2007, Praguebiennale 4 in 2009, Prague Photo in 2009 and many group exhibitions, including The Intimate Circle in Contemporary Czech Photography in 2013 in Prague City Gallery (GHMP).