Personal experiences shape both my collaborative projects and my solo work. I use music and art as a way to understand my emotions and inner world, with the intention to create a space where my audience can explore their inner worlds. I find my greatest inspiration in nature, especially in the ways opposites – like day and night, the seasonal changes, light and darkness, life and death – all exist in harmony. I’m also fascinated by the duality within us and what we can learn from the natural world.
As an artist, I am also deeply interested in multimedia and interdisciplinary work, particularly how music and images interact and exchange meaning. This extends to the relationship between multimedia practices and an audience – how these meaningful exchanges shape and redefine our understanding of both the artwork and ourselves.
Biography
Mari-Louise du Plessis, known by her pseudonym Mira, is a South-African born, multi-disciplinary artist, composer, and experimental performer. During her master’s studies, she pushed the boundaries of traditional music composition and visual art. In 2016, she moved to Taiwan, where she continued to merge these fields. Her debut audio-visual project Seven Melodies was launched at Lei Gallery in 2017, followed by her first solo piano album at Little Play in 2018. She showcased her second audio-visual project Temper across Taiwan from 2022 to 2023.
As an experimental performer, collaborating with Taiwanese experimental performers Lin Tzu-Ning, Alica Han and Huang Ching since 2022, Mari-Louise has participated in numerous performances and interdisciplinary shows, including Senko Issha sessions, Burn Rocket at Revolver, and Real-time Composition at Lin’s Culture. The collaborative project Inter(play), was an ongoing show that showcased across Taiwan with a focus on the stage as a means of transformation and rebirth. This collaboration involved body movement, experimental vocals, no-input noise and instruments such as piano and violin.
In 2024, she released her second album, Emerge, inspired by Jon Renzella’s woodcut artwork. In collaboration with Taiwanese experimental performers, she performed at, KLEX, an experimental film, video and music festival in Kuala Lumpur. At the end of 2024, Mari-Louise showcased a solo exhibition tilted The Pulse of Nature at Chaoyang University of Technology in Taichung where she performanced the audiovisual work Temper and exhibited a series of photomontages. Currently based in Taipei, she is working on her second acoustic piano album.
