When my friend Cornelia invited me to meet Marta, I immediately came full of curiosity, because she had told me that those fantastic photographic portraits that she had shown me not long ago and that I had admired were made by Marta. They were not just any portraits, but they depicted a mythical, archetypal Cornelia.
A lot of people talk and a lot of people urge you to feel and behave like a princess, like a queen or like a goddess. But most of the time they are just words or a fleeting fantasy of a masquerade ball. Cornelia-goddess was visible, viable and present in those portraits. No one could ignore her, especially not herself. That is why I found the art of photographer Marta therapeutic and extremely powerful, fine and expressive. I was very curious to see Marta, to talk to her and to understand how she does it, how she proceeds.
When I arrived at her exhibition in Bucharest, I was so captivated by her and the way she talked about what she does as an art of transformation that I forgot for a long time even my own profession of taking photos when I find myself in a new and spectacular place. The truth is that I have always hidden behind the camera – but this time I wanted to be in the light and capture something of Marta’s spirit, which was certainly not in the picture, in the photograph, in stillness, but in her fantastic internal fluidity.
In the room where she had set up her small 2-day workshop, the center of the room was for siiting and conversationș there were some armchairs and the small table where we had our conversation. On the wall, a table full of the most amazing accessories that could exist – especially ethnic accessories from all over the world. Towards another wall, from behind a curtain, one could see wonderful caftans and fabrics – most of them of oriental inspiration.
I guessed that, beyond their timeless elegance, these garments allowed anyone to feel at ease. I talked a lot with Marta, she told me what she does and how she does it, and as we talked I discovered in her such a beautiful being, radiating the joy of knowing and discovering, of communicating soulfully, as I had rarely seen before. In fact, I had seen before… I had known shamans, so I told Marta: you are a shaman, a healer and a medicine woman.
Through the portraits made by Marta, which represent the concretization of a creative process that is artistic in nature, but in fact and deep down is a process of inner transformation of the type symbolized by tarot or alchemy, people come to know their true power and majesty, their true soul.
If the (in)famous portrait reveals to Dorian Gray all the hidden evils and destroys him, Marta’s portraits do the opposite: they impress and reveal because they bring to light an intimate nature of man in which lights and shadows intertwine and produce beauty. Totality is yin and yang and no one can claim to know themselves if they have not had the chance to meet their shadow.
There is no greater blessing than becoming what you are, said C. G. J. Jung, and this self-realization and self-actualization is Marta’s path.
She became herself, she becomes herself every day – because the great mystery is that this is not a stasis, but a process. And because Marta herself is capable of this protean process, the person in front of her will also tend towards this process, simply by tuning in to her.
A person does not learn from what the teacher says but from what the Teacher is, Marta tells me. The same goes for the therapist, I tell her. Being as you are, being yourself, for those in front of you you are a living invitation to tune in and be themselves.
But how am I so sure of this self-actualization of Marta? Well, I have two clues:
1. She came to realize as an adult exactly what she had been looking for and exploring as a child
She tells me how in her childhood in Slovenia she didn’t have many toys, but she had made herself a magic box, where she had collected an old and broken necklace from her mother, a few links from the chain from the bathroom sink and a few sparkling pebbles from the river. She would run with the box into the woods behind the house where she had made a hut out of branches, like a darkroom.
There she would take refuge, open the box and begin her magical theater. She tells me how she was moved to tears when she realized that now, as an adult, she was doing exactly what she had done as a child, and this game was the basis of her life.
For years I had completely forgotten about it, she told me.
The luckiest people are those who do not forget who and what they were as children, those who keep the game in their lives, she tells me.
I did not have time to tell her that as a child I had played similar games – and I still do.
2 the enlightenment that the moment she sees how the person in front of her has set off on the path of self-actualization produces in her. She radiates joy and fulfillment. She rejoices with her whole being and from the extremely precise and sensory way in which she describes this joy to me I realize how authentic and fertile this feeling is.
I think I do these things for myself, and I feed off of them, Marta tells me.
As I was saying, self-actualization is a protean process.
And Marta is not afraid of transformation, just as she is not afraid of relocation: she left Slovenia, she left London, she lived in Dubai where her Sacred Queendom studio is now, and now she is preparing to leave Dubai for Marrakesh. A true journey of knowledge, because there in Morocco she aims to learn the Tarot thoroughly. She also has a master there who told her that her arcana is The Fool, which amazed her at first, but then she realized that it was actually herself, with her defining courage to follow her calling and to plunge into uncertainty without reservations and without fears.
I already feel that Tarot has a lot in common with Marta’s art, because just as her portraits are photographs of the person’s current nature, in which profane, somatic, emotional and spiritual planes overlap, so a tarot reading represents the person’s current spiritual situation – a kind of astral photography that uses the arcana as an alphabet, but one that is not only expressive but also works the other way around, so it has magical power.
Marta, where do you come from and how did you come to make such portraits? Did you study photography, psychology, spiritual sciences? Did you do other arts and other styles of photography before arriving at this refined art of portraiture? How did you stabilize yourself in this method? Or rather, you not actually stabilize yourself, but you still see it in transformation? To what end?
I came into photography in a moment of true serendipity – divine, because one day I realized that photography called me and it would be my highest purpose. I knew in that second that I had to do this and photography would lead me to the answers I needed.
When I was 22 and still in Slovenia, I got a camera and immediately started taking portraits – only people interested me. Then I started doing fashion photography, I went further, I wanted to develop my art, so I enrolled in Central Saint Martin’s School of Art. It was the biggest dream that I fulfilled – I did a year of postgraduate studies – during which I developed a richer expressiveness, with elements of surrealism. I was still exploring and had started looking to capture portraits of the soul. The photos from that time represented women in the cemetery, like angels.
Others were bare-breasted and had an expression of abandonment, fragile, graceful, slightly tragic. I had begun to discover how photographs literally become an expression of the soul and I hoped to conquer the world of London photography with this. I can’t say that I conquered it, but I had some recognition, which gave me courage.
I continued to work in this style for a few years and ended the cycle with a beautiful exhibition called Gaze into the Murkiness in Ljubljana, 2012.
Then came the call to go to Dubai – there I continued portraits, but also other types of photography that would allow me to live – especially advertising and fashion. But my soul was restless again – I didn’t understand why, apparently I was doing what I wanted.
Then I had another moment of serendipity: I ran into a Pakistani on the street. Photographing him made me realize that this is what I had to do: to photograph ordinary people and express through my photographs the greatness of these people. This was a very profound period in my life, when I went beyond the boundaries of any comfort zones. To make this project, I literally followed all kinds of people, especially Pakistani workers – the lowest class in Dubai. Then I would photograph them in my studio, with flowers. I worked on this project for a year.
I would walk down the street and always find a person who stirred something in my heart, and then I would ask this person to come with me to the photography studio. It was often awkward, almost always uncomfortable, but through this process I became who I am now – because it was increasingly clear that no matter how hard it seems, this is what I have to do.
And then, when I did the exhibition, it showed me that, yes, this is truly my calling. In this process I realized that I could highlight the greatness of each person using my creative approach and passion for different cultures and especially for the clothing styles of different cultures and traditions in the world.
I would buy all kinds of beautiful things, from bazaars – some I would never wear, but I would put them there in the studio. Suddenly I realized that all these things were waiting in the studio to adorn someone, someone who was going to come.
One day I had the opportunity to create an installation at an art fair in Dubai – Sikh Art Fair. I created it in the form of a photo booth where people would come, I would dress them royally and quickly create a photo that would be iconic for them and become a source of personal power and transformation. And this filled me with excitement. I was right – people were queuing in front of the booth, everyone wanted such a photo.
That’s how it all started in 2018. It was something that people loved and I loved doing, although I felt somewhat clumsy, I was still not a stylist. Gradually my style evolved and the photos became more complex. And I evolved as a human being.
Throughout this labor, I gradually began to be aware of my spiritual practice. I did not initiate myself and did not expressly study spirituality or therapy. However, I realized that what I do has a therapeutic effect – not only for the people I photographed but also for me – it cultivates my humility, compassion, empathy, love for people and humanity.
Wanting to create something extraordinary for the person in front of me, I had to purify myself every time, I had to dig and dive into the depths in order to then have a light heart, to honestly relate to the person in front of me and his transformations. In this way, I went through my own transformations, through pain and disappointment, but I became even more aware of the fact that my feminine side had not yet healed. My healing journey took me to the Amazon, in Brazil, where I went through several ceremonies with medicinal plants.
That’s how I discovered that, as I revealed myself, my portraits also took on more and more dimensions. The more dimensions I could access of myself, the more dimensions the photographs and their symbolism took on. If at first I had no other goal than to give them power and actually instill vision in the people I photographed, now I began to put everything I knew about the human psyche to work. I tried to penetrate their self using my own self and create a vision starting from there, from the self that was their own.
So in these years, the process through which we created a portrait became increasingly deeper and more evolved.
That’s how I got to where I am now, a few years ago, where people see my work as a true therapy, a path to their own inner transformation.
I show those I photograph a higher nature, in a higher timeline, because I already see them in a higher timeline. When they encounter this image of themselves, something in them recognizes itself and awakens – it was an aspect that they had simply forgotten. They did not remember that they are human beings meant to live their fullness. The archetypes that emerge in this process, as I adorn and portray them, reveal their true essence, their higher self that comes forward when called.
This is the journey I have taken, like a hero’s journey, from the call to adventure to the final step that I feel I am now ready to take, which involves presenting myself and acting as a guide. It’s a journey that has shown me that individuation is an absolutely essential need for us – that is, it is absolutely essential for us to become who we truly are.
What kind of clients/models do you have and what do they ask of you? What expectations do they come with?
Most of them are women between 40 and 45. When people come for private sessions, we start by having tea together. That’s how I usually find out that they come to have their photos taken to mark a new beginning – I see this especially with women who want to mark a break with their past, with the limits imposed on themselves, who want to mark an initiation, a new beginning in their lives. I truly believe that this initiation is much more powerful than when, for example, you write down a new list of goals in life. That’s because what we do in our sessions is to embody intentions.
That’s why what we do is a labor of transformation. I didn’t know this until I went through a process of transformation, of discovery myself. That’s how I was able to realize that my alchemy was transferring to the people I photograph.
Who are the easiest people to photograph? But the hardest to photograph? Have you noticed any differences between men and women or between cultures?
In my work I have noticed that very pure souls, who do not have a strong ego, and generally modest people, who have a certain degree of innocence, are the easiest to photograph. They are not concerned with the social mask – with what Jung called the persona.
On the other hand, I have a harder time with those who do not want to abandon the persona – my goal becomes to free them from the persona.
Of course, the persona is important for our functioning, but it is not our true self, it is not the soul – and what interests me is the soul.
How long does a photo session with you last?
My photo sessions last between 20 minutes and 2 hours. 90% of the sessions require about 45 minutes of styling and the rest is the actual shooting. It’s like a ritual: stripping off the persona, putting on the archetype by putting on the clothes. Some are scared: if they abandon the persona, who will they be? It takes a while before we manage to highlight the true essence.
Tell me about the concept of Sacred Queendom. Will you take it with you to Marrakesh when you move? What brings you to Marrakesh?
To Marrakesh I felt one of those divine calls that cannot be denied or refused. My soul resonated with Marrakesh and called me there. I saw a post on Instagram and decided to go there. After a month I was back in Marrakesh, then I came back again after 2 months and then I had the revelation that I should move to Marrakesh.
I stayed there for another 2 months, after which I thought that it would be a healthy balance to live in Dubai and Marrakesh, they are different and complementary: one more for inspiration and soul and the other more for using my gifts. I think next year I will “dance” between them.
What do you think is the most beautiful moment in your life?
The most beautiful moments I experience are when I feel the connection between two souls who see each other in all their complexity.
Two souls who fully experience the glory and grace of the privilege of being in this life at the same time. I wish for more of these moments in my life
And I also wish to be able to unite my entire inner fire with life and humanity and burn completely
Now I am reminded of CG Jung saying that the greatest privilege of a life is to become what you are. So what I would most like would be to give everything I have In this life without leaving anything aside or behind. To completely alchemize my life.
Here you will find Marta: https://www.sacredqueendom.com/
About women and shamanism: https://palindrom.eu/cum-m-am-imprietenit-cu-astrele-la-wayra-astrae/
