After completing his studies he works as a freelance photographer. He began to devote time to teaching (pedagogic) activities in 1992, when he hosted photography workshops in Prague and Dobešice together with his wife, Helena. Between 1995-1996 he taught as an extern at the photography department at FAMU in Prague. At present he works as an expert assistant at the Silesian University’s Institute of Creative Photography in Opava. Since 1990 he has been a member of the Photographers Association and the Prague House of Photography. Since 1999 he has served on the editorial board for Film and the Era (Film a doby) and since 2001 he has been a member of the Mánes Artists Society in Prague.
In his free time or amateur works he focuses mainly on modern still-lifes and nudes and portraits, which of course tend to be far from traditional concepts, including among other things frequent experiments with various technological processes (i.e. serigraphy, photographs on canvas, photo plastics, zinc and glass reliefs, etc.). Mára’s style began to develop in the second half of the 1970s, when he began to create technicised geometric forms in the extensive colour series, Mechanical Still-life – Mechanická zátiší, where there is a clear, almost mathematically-expressed, concept of ideal, clean forms (made of cold metals), referring to minimalism. Among the artist’s figural creations (made since the 2nd half of the 1980s) his set of portraits called Roušky – Veils (1989) and Triptychy – Triptychs (1993) are most characteristic. The series Mechanical Bodies – Mechanické korpusy builds on his large-format collection of dynamic body frescoes, Bodies – Korpusy (1988). In those „mechanical“ red bodies and irregular space units, he uses „expiation“ of all traces of subjectivity of those persons painted to attain a sort of irrational, ideal object type – figures created as if only in the mental space. In his series of nudes, Madonna – Madona, (1999), created in an original technique of toned negatives, the models ambivalent gestures dominate. Another figure-oriented collection is his pigment prints on canvas called Space – Prostor dating from 2002. The series is made up of twelve large-format computer prints, printed from a digital camera in low resolution. So in some parts there is a pictorial effect of emphasised pixel grids. In 2006 he presented his last series of large-format prints to date. This was called Heads – Hlavy, Triptychs – Triptychy and Tunnel – Tunel, in which he elaborated themes from both the corporal and mental spheres – similar to his work in Veils – Roušky, Bodies – Korpusy and Madonna – Madona, which markedly draw from the visual repertoire of Christianity. The internal content of these works, however, exceeds the framework of one tradition and moves on toward a broader understanding of spirituality. Many times this happens in the specific form of creating an image of the „spiritual body.“
Within applied photography he focuses primarily on artistically-oriented shots for posters and calendars. At present he is creating, for example, monumentally-stylised portraits for the Shakespeare Summer Festival. He also created and directed a number of audio-visual programmes using the principles of polyécran (Metal and Dream of a Computer – Kov a Sen o počítači, Interkamera (1983), Magical Car – Magické auto, Škoda Auto Museum, Mladá Boleslav (1996).
Since 1983 he has been exhibiting independently and has taken part in more than 70 group showings. He sporadically devotes time to photo journalism, mainly in the magazines, Film a doba and Ateliér. His series, Madonna, was part of the Czech Republic’s pavilion at the EXPO 2000 in Hannover.
