Maria Eugenia Chellet

María Eugenia Chellet (born 1948) is a Mexican artist who has evolved from photography to mixed media and currently focuses mostly on performance. Her work focuses on exploring female archetypes and other images relating to femininity, often using herself (self portrait) in roles such as female Biblical figures, those in classical artwork and those from commercial mass media of the 20th century to the present. Her work has been recognized with membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.

Life Chellet, also known as Maru, was born Mexico City in 1948, attending primary school in the city of Querétaro.

She received her bachelor's degree in information science from the Universidad Iberoamericana and a master's degree in visual arts from the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City.

She studied photography with the City Literary Institute in London.

Her work has participated in numerous collective shows including those at the José María Velasco Gallery in Mexico City (1995), Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City (1994), the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (1993), Casa de Cultura México-Japón (1992), the Museo de la Ciudad de México (1991), an exhibit sponsored by the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores in Mendoza, Argentina (1990), the Efrén Rebolledo Cultural Forum in Pachuca (1989), the Museo Nacional de San Carlos in Mexico City (1989), the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City (1987), the III Bienal Latinoamericana de Fotografía in Havana (1985), and the Manuel Alvarez Bravo Gallery in Mexico City (1981) . Her collage work often joins and reconfigures elements from different times and spaces. She has depicted herself as women in classic painting, in film, in comic books, as pin-up girls and as models in publicity, starting in such early works as Complejo de Musa (1981) and La Maja Soy Yo (1989) .

Her work has evolved towards performance, often using herself to depict the main female figure(s). She learned about performance art through books and was impressed by the idea of experimenting with time and space as well as with an audience directly. For Chellet, doing performance is a way to get beyond her own boundaries, confronting her limits and those of others to express her doubts and worries. She believes that performance art is partly therapeutic and healing in a ritual sense. She has represented herself as the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, as the wife of Arnolfini, Joan of Arc, Cinderella and several versions of the Virgin Mary, as well as a nurse, a neglected housewife, a nun, as a femme fatale, prostitute and more. Chellet has performed in various venues from the street to Chapultepec Park, to museums such as ex Teresa el Actual and the Museo del Chopo and in avant guarde galleries.