Secret d’ amour

Mara Karetsos was born in 1944 in Larissa. She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts, sculpture with Th. Mara Katsaros, who worked at the Academy of Fine Arts in Athens with Th. Matragas and ceramics with G. Georgiou (1964-1971). After a competition, she was appointed and worked in 1973-1974 as a curator at the sculpture department of the National Technical University of Athens, but resigned and moved to Paris. Her acquaintance there with Alexandros Iolas led her to New York, where she has lived and worked ever since. In recent years she has been visiting Greece for long periods of time and in 2022 she founded the "Mara Karetsos Art and Science Centre", which aims to promote and promote young Greek artists. Her artistic activity includes sculpture and micro-sculpture (jewellery) as well as drawings and paintings. She is inspired by mythological and archetypal themes, such as the pyramid, the column and creates works which have clear influences from archaic and Hellenistic sculpture, as well as surrealism. In the course of her artistic activity she has also created works of monumental dimensions, which are distinguished by the reversal of their utilitarian roles and the exploitation of their expressive potential. She presented her work in solo exhibitions in Greece and mainly abroad, in Paris, New York, Tokyo, etc. She has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions.