Wanna be my lover? Ornella Mari’s first solo exhibition

Ornella Mari (1996) is a Belgian-born Hungarian-ltalian photographer based in Budapest, who graduated in Sociology at ELTE. She started photography in 2017 to explore her identity and relationship with femininity and womanhood. Her work mainly focuses on young women grappling with societal expectations and deals with themes such as trauma, emotions, gender equality, and unrealistic female expectations.

“In Mari Ornella’s photos, control and loss of control appear with equal emphasis; although her pictures are staged, they still offer an insight into the moments of disintegration when everything is falling apart. Behind the slightly rolled up eyes, the half-drunk grimaces in the morning and the looks of the beautiful, young faces, something from the seemingly inescapable and insurmountable darkness rises again and again. Her latest series, Wanna Be My Lover, deals with the search for female identity and the issues of women’s self-definition by men. The project originates from personal experiences and traumas, Mari’s focus is on her relationship with men and his own father, the characteristics of borderline personality disorder and the consequences of uncontrollable emotional states.”

Borbála Szalai

director, Trafó Gallery, Budapest