Biography & Statement
Maya Gelfman
From painting to installation, performance to street-art, Gelfman uses her body to investigate transformation, fragility, resilience,
beauty and decay. Her practice is immersive and deliberately spontaneous. She uses somatic techniques to engage with
the sensory field around and within her: brushstrokes synchronize with breath, sound navigates the gestures of hands and feet,
colors and textures emerge from the landscape, the time of day, the season. In this slow, performative process she serves as both
an observer and a participant.
Her approach draws inspiration from Fluxus, action painting, improv theory, and meditation. But the fascination with the immediate
and the visceral is also deeply personal. A near-death experience during a heart surgery at age four and the long recovery that followed,
instilled in her an embodied understanding of impermanence. It still fuels the urgency and totality with which she creates today.
Born in 1978 to a family of immigrants that had fled from Moldova (at the time, the USSR) to Israel.
In 2017 she chose to become a nomad and has been traveling the world ever since. It’s both a life-path and an artistic practice.
Her work is rooted in “site and time specific” methodologies: facilitated by movement and change, propelled by a commitment to impermanence.
Since graduating with a BA from Shenkar Art Academy (2006), Gelfman’s work has exhibited extensively.
With eleven solo exhibitions under her belt, six international residencies, and dozens of group shows.
Her works were featured at the the 60th Venice Biennale, Italy (2024), the Zuckerman Museum of Art, USA (2024), the National Gallery, Thailand (2017), the Israel National Museum (2016), and art fairs in London, Miami, and Washington D.C.
Notable residency programs include the SAPH (China) and Windgate (USA), and was shortlisted for the Halcyon Fellowship (2019).
Her work was published in the media and in international art-books (in London, Germany, france, Colombia and USA),
and can be found in private and public collections, including Lettenmayer & partners, Rivka Saker, Hagit Borenstein, Goldman, Erlich,
Gaver, Edelstein & Co. Law, Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Creative Discovery Museum, Historic Building 98, Milu Hotel.
In 2013, she gave a TEDx talk on her intentional practice. Beyond institutional spaces, she co-founded 'Mind the Heart!' Project (2009),
a street-art project that has reached over 100 cities globally. In 2017 she co-created The Serendipity Experiment, a public performance committed to “Saying Yes”. Strangers they met on the road sent them on a winding route across North America, spanning four years
and 100,000 km. She has been on the move ever since, currently residing in France.
