Mari Saxon is a Russian-born conceptual photographer based in the USA since 2022. Rooted in academic art education and long-term architectural practice, she constructs her visual language through staged compositions, working in the field of magical realism and performative photography. Her imagery is conceived scenographically, and employs ironic allusions to classical painting, play, absurdity, and complex symbolism as key visual strategies. Saxon engages with themes of motherhood, female subjectivity, displacement, and self-identification.
Since launching her fine-art practice in 2023, Mari Saxon’s work has received numerous awards and distinctions, including Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50, 1st Place in IPA, and multiple Awards of Excellence from CPOY. A finalist for Griffin Museum’s Scholarship, Capacity-Building Cohort Grant, and global PhotoVogue open call, her work has been widely exhibited internationally, most notably at Griffin Museum, Milan’s Palazzo Brera, Fitchburg Art Museum, and Danforth Art Museum, and international photography festivals across USA and Europe, is held in private collections, and commissioned by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

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Selected honors

2026
  • Juror's Prize by Future Arts Workers at "Change" exhibition, ArtsWorcester Gallery
  • Americana Photo Awards 1st Place Winner in the category of Cuisine and Food Culture
  • Griffin Museum John Chervinsky Scholarship Finalist
  • Access Fund Grant, Copley Society of Art, Boston, MA
  • Capacity-Building Cohort A4A grant recipient in Worcester County
2025
  • ND Awards 3rd Place Winner in People Category (project)
  • CPOY Award of Excellence in Interpretive Eye Category (project)
  • CPOY Award of Excellence in Interpretive Eye Category (single)
  • CPOY Award of Excellence in Illustration Category (project)
  • Photolucida Critical Mass TOP 50 finalist (project)
  • Juror’s Choice Award by juror Conor Moynihan (RISD museum) winner Exposure 2025 by PRC Photographic Resource Centre (project)
  • International Photography Award IPA 1st Place winner (Self Portrait Category, project)
  • A Global Open Call by PhotoVogue 'Women by Women' finalist (project)
  • Color Awards 1st place winner (Portrait Category, single)
  • Life Framer Series Award, shortlisted (project)
  • XIII International Photo Festival - PHODAR Biennial winner (project)
2024
  • HIPA finalist (B&W Category, single)
  • Photolucida Critical Mass TOP 200 finalist (project)
  • Emerging photographer of the Hamburg Portfolio Review (project)
  • Belfast Photo Festival shortlisted (project)
Education
2025-2026 Book[e]lab Laboratory of book creating, online
2024-2025 Docdocdoc, Contemporary Photography Practice course, online
2024-2025 Natalya Zhukova, Fine Art photography course, online
2022-2024 Marusina Masterskaya, Fine Art photography course, online
2019-2021 Sergey Maximishin, Documentary photography course, Moscow Russia
1994-2000 Moscow State Architectural Academy MA Architecture, Moscow Russia
Artist Statement
I always adore noticing the absurdity, surrealism in the everyday, as if reality lifts the edge of its curtain for me, and through this gap, I see the backstage of the scenery. Recognizing the surreal edge in the everyday churn of events keeps me from sinking into melodrama over the losses and upheavals that my family, my homeland, and I are forced to endure.
For my projects, I often construct theatrical tableau vivant — absurd, surreal, sometimes unsettling, even disturbing. I prefer to speak with humor, irony, and lightness about painful experiences, trauma, and other difficult themes. I use absurd imagery and allusions to classical painting so that my narrative does not turn into mourning or lamentation, but instead becomes a means of overcoming trauma and easing pain.
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Exhibitions

ON VIEW

  • June 2 - Sep 13 - "Call and Response: Kindred" at Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA
  • June 12 - Sep 6 - "2026 Handmade Photobook Exhibition" (juror Caleb Cain Marcus) at Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA
  • June 13 - Aug 30 - "2026 Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition" (jurors Rachel Passannante, Tim McDonald, Lauren Graves) at Danforth Art Museum, Framingham, MA
  • June 20 - Sep 13 - "90th Regional Exhibition of Art and Craft" (juror Lissa Cramer) at Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA
  • June 20 - Aug 20 - "Emerging Voices Co|So & Harvard Club" (juror Dr. Lauren O'Neal) at Harvard Club of Boston, Boston, MA

UPCOMING

  • July 9 - Aug 8 - "National Show: Intersections" (Juror Almitra Stanley) at Copley Society of Art, Boston, MA
  • July 15 - Aug 23 - "The Fourteenth Annual One" at ArtsWorcester Gallery, Worcester, MA
  • July 30 - Oct 17 - "Small Works: In Tandem" at Copley Society of Art, Boston, MA
  • July 31 - Sep 6 - "32nd Annual Members Juried Exhibition" (juror Barbara Tannenbaum) at Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA
  • Nov 12 - Dec 13 - "2026 Worcester County cohort Grant Recepients Showcase", ArtsWorcester Gallery, Worcester, MA

PAST

SOLO AND UP TO FOUR ARTISTS SHOWS

2026

  • The solo show "Ethereal" at Space Place Gallery, Nizhniy Tagil, Russia

2025

  • "Stories in Transition" (Dmitry Gomberg, Anna Kreslavskaya, Fima Furman, and Mari Saxon) at Wedeman Gallery, Newton, MA
  • The solo show at Shrewsbury Public Library, Shrewsbury, MA
  • "Artists Shoeboxes" (Mari Saxon, Melody Fortier, and Karin Cloutier and Morgan Tartakoff) at ArtsWorcester Gallery, Worcester, MA

2024

  • "A Magic of Three" (Alexandra Rozenman, Mari Saxon, Pauline Lim) at Hopkinton Arts Center, Hopkinton, MA in 2024

JURIED AND CURATED GROUP SHOWS

2026

  • "Change" (Juror's Prize winner) at ArtsWorcester Gallery, Worcester, MA
  • "RE NEW: Recycled Art Show" at The KMW School of Painting, Somerville, MA
  • "Port Art Fair" Contemporary Art Fair, St Petersburg, Russia
  • "Pearl Street Book Fair" at Gallery 263, Cambridge, MA
  • "Contour.Foto" graphic and print work fair, Nyzhniy Novgorod, Russia
  • "Global Visions: FotoFest at 40" (juror Madi Murphy) at FotoFest Biennial, Houston, TX
  • "Critical Mass 2025 Top 50" at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR
  • "First Look: A Second Glance", Panopticon Gallery, Boston, MA
  • "The Measure of Light: Juried Members Show", Copley Society of Art, Boston, MA
  • "2025 Winners & Honorable Mentions", The Image Flow Gallery, San Anselmo, CA
  • The PhotoVogue Festival 2026, Palazzo Brera, Milan, IT
  • "Trying To Tell You How I Feel" (curator Doug Breault) at Gallery 263, Cambridge, MA

2025

  • "Critical Mass 2025 Top 50" at Duncan Miller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
  • "Gathering Place: A Family Album" by Griffin Museum of Photography, online
  • "Trieste Photo Days" at Porto Vecchio, Trieste, Italy
  • "Resonance of self" at LoosenArt, Millepiani Gallery, Rome, Italy
  • "Impressions: What Is Left Behind" at the Mary Cosgrove Dolphin Gallery, Worcester, MA
  • "Exposure 2025" (juror Conor Moynihan) by PRC at VanDernoot Gallery, Cambridge, MA (+Artist Talk)
  • IV All-Russian photo festival "Painting with light" at Turgenev Library, Moscow, Russia
  • "Vision(ary)" by Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA (+Artist Talk)
  • "31st Annual Juried Members Exhibition" at Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA
  • "Unfiltered Femininity" at the Mary Cosgrove Dolphin Gallery, Worcester, MA
  • "Women Tales" at Centre for photography Mart (curator Artem Berkovitch), Yekaterinburg, Russia (+Artist Talk)
  • "Spring Show" (juror Doug Breault) at The Curated Fridge, Somerville, MA
  • "13th edition of Phodar" winners exhibition at The Palace National Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria
  • "Focus on Fashion" international exhibition during Cracow Fashion Week, Cracow, Poland
  • "Fusion" at ArtsWorcester Gallery, Worcester, MA

2024

  • "Contacts and Connections" at LoosenArt, online
  • "Art as storytelling" at Midwest Nice Art, online
  • "Broken Forms" at LoosenArt, Millepiani Gallery, Rome, Italy
  • "11th edition of Trieste Photo Days" at International Festival of Photography, Trieste, Italy
  • "30th Annual Members Exhibition" at Griffin Museum, Winchester, MA
  • "100 Photographers to Watch" at Superlative Gallery, Bali Indonesia
  • "Cinematic Theme" (jurors Alexa Cushing, Conor Noll) at Panopticon Gallery, Boston, MA
  • "View Finder" at ArtsWorcester Gallery, Worcester, MA
  • "Portrait: Self and Others" at PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT
  • "Dreams And Nightmares" at Boomer Gallery, London, UK

2023

  • "Fotostrelka" Festival of B&W Photography, Borovsk, Russia
  • "FAM's 87th Regional Exhibition" (juror Chenoa Baker)at Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA
Publications

2026

2025

2024

2020

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