YULIA MAHR, UNBECOMING

Yulia Mahr, the acclaimed Hungarian-born British visual artist, presented Unbecoming – a solo exhibition of new and unseen lens-based works and installation curated by Margot Mottaz at Wehrmuehle, Berlin. 

Marking a significant change of direction in Mahr’s artistic journey, Unbecoming delves into the intricacies of human existence, exploring themes of birth, death, and transfiguration. A study of the beautiful and the ‘unsightly’ as inseparable facets of the human condition, the exhibition directs a raw lens onto the interplay of life – pictures of women’s bodies bearing the scars of childbirth and life sit alongside those of unborn foetuses, and gnats alighting on still ponds.

Through layered and repeated figuration, scarred bodies, decaying matter, and lifeless animals contrast with moments of birth and life. Presenting a body of work that carries a nuanced touch of tenderness andvulnerability, each image is intentionally presented outside of ‘time’. Speaking concurrently of personal stories like the artists’ own journey through childbirth and the passage of a close friend into middle age, Unbecoming dives into narratives that resound universally, underpinned by the rhythmic ebbs and flows of the natural world.