Selected Portfolio
 RISING OVER THE RIM OF THIS VAST DREAM Acrylic, ink and markers on canvas. 111/153cm {44"/35"}. 2026 |  WHERE THE RHYTHMS OF LIFE TURN TOWARDS EACH OTHER Acrylic, ink and markers on canvascanvas. 70/90 cm, {27"/35"}. 2026 |  SEEMINGLY DISAPPEARING YET NEVER OUT OF SIGHT Acrylic, ink and markers on canvas. 201/200 cm {79”/78”}. 2024 |
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 IN THE SLOW EXHALE OF THE TIDE Acrylic, ink and markers on canvas. 197/214 cm {77”/84”}. 2024 |  STILLWATER Acrylic, ink and markers on canvas. 135/211 cm {53"/83"}. 2025 (sold) |  IN THE THICK OF IT, no.2 Acrylic, ink and markers on canvas. 77/198 cm {30"/78"}. 2024 |
 A MOMENT TO BE FOUND Acrylic, ink and markers on canvas. 98/125 cm {39"/49"}. 2022 |  WHEN MORNING HAS NOT YET IMAGINED ITSELF, no.1-2 Acrylic, ink and markers on canvas. 37/42 cm {14"/16"}. 2024 |  IN THE FLESH, no.1 Acrylic, ink and markers on canvas. 73/65 cm {29"/25"}. 2025 |
 LAOCOONA AND BAUBO Leather, thread and yarn, 80/400/200 cm {32"/158"/80"}. 2015. |  AEGIS Faux leather, thread and yarn. 190/170/35 cm {74"/67"/14"}. 2019 |  PROMETHEA IN CHAINS Felt and yarn, 100/150/50 cm {40"/60"/200"}. 2015 & 2017. |
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 SHELL Yarn (300,000 threads), iron net and hangers, 300/200/150 cm {118"/80"/60"}. 2013. |  WINGS (front and back view) Hangers, tyvek, web, belts and yarn, 200/300/30 cm {118/78/23}. 2012. |  BLACK BIRDS Yarn and poly-carbonate on wall, 400/600 cm {157"/236"}. 2017. |
 SHELTER Fabric and treated foam. Crescent City, CA, USA. 2020 |  THE UNIMAGINABLE HORIZON Ruszcza, Poland. 2021 |  FROM THE ASHES Found object. Ojai, CA, USA. 2018 |
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 A SEDIMENT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SKY Yarn and treated foam. Etowah Indian Mounds, GA, USA. 2023 |  HOME/LAND Treated foam. Rome, GA, USA. 2023 |  THE TRAILS IN OUR WAKE Treated foam. Rome, GA, USA. 2023 |
Short Biography
Maya Gelfman, b.1978, an Artist-Nomad, (based in the U.S.A. & the E.U.)
From painting to installation, performance to street-art, 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), Tel Aviv Museum of Art,
Haifa Museum, and art fairs in London, Monaco, Brussles, Miami, and Washington D.C.
Graduated from Shenkar School of Art & Design (2006). 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, Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Creative Discovery Museum, Historic Building 98, Milu Hotel, R. Saker, H. Borenstein, Goldman, Erlich, Gaver, Edelstein & Co. Law.
Beyond institutional spaces, she gave a TEDx talk on her intentional practice (2013). She co-founded 'Mind the Heart!' Project (2009), together with Roie Avidan. A street-art project that has reached over 100 cities globally.
In 2017 they embarked on 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. Gelfman has been on the move ever since.
Gelfman uses her body to investigate transformation. Her practice is immersive and deliberately spontaneous: facilitated by movement and change, and propelled by a commitment to impermanence. Her drive is fueled by a childhood near-death experience, (during a heart surgery), infusing her work and life-choices with a visceral urgency.
Behind the Paintings
Rising over the rim of this vast dream
Spring 2026 in Southern France has ushered in a steady stream of new creations. After the long, dark winter, the changing season demanded a completely different mindset and a fresh approach in the studio.
I could feel the buds of my fingertips opening up, defrosting and softening. I soaked in the shimmering sunshine and channeled it directly onto the canvas. This painting is the first offering from that luminous crop. It serves as a somatic topography of awakening: mapping the delicate threshold where the quiet, internal landscape meets a buzzing world. The warm, visceral crimson lines cutting through icy architectural blues
aim to capture the precise moment in time when a seemingly dormant ecosystem suddenly pulses with
an undeniable, urgent heartbeat.
Where the rhythms of life turn towards each other
This intimate dialogue with the shifting climate continues as I experiment with smaller formats.
This painting was born from a night of sudden, heavy rain. The storm left the sky thick and gray, but at daybreak, rays of light came piercing through the clouds, leaving the world outside the studio silent and pearly with raindrops. Somehow, the air felt cold and hot all at once, drawing out nocturnal snails and early-rising birds.
This piece is meant to feel as airy as that sunrise and the landscape it revealed, tracing a natural transition alongside the fresh smell of wet earth.
Seemingly disappearing yet never out of sight & In the slow exhale of the tide
These works were created back-to-back, during a scorching summer residency at La Manufacture Royale
in 2024. Located at a four hundred year old textile factory in the historic village of Montolieu, the studio sat
at the edge of the inner courtyard, surrounded by historical structures, some still standing, others in ruins.
Ivy and moss covered brick walls, arched windows, glinting shuttered glass, and skeletal industrial poles were overgrown with lavender, rosemary bushes, and huge chestnut trees. I let the sweeping arcs of green and yellow, alongside the charcoal dust of years gone by, guide my body across the paintings’ surface, holding the echoing relationship between the sun-dappled surroundings and the soundtrack of the river.
Both pieces emerge from a similar dynamic mindset: from the whirling vortex and through the rushing current, everything is in flux. The first propels the eye upward in a whirlwind, while the second makes the gaze follow the waterlines horizontally. History is peeking through the layers, but the overlapping textures, radiating geometries, organic leaf shapes, sharp branch strokes, and solid architectural fragments
all point to impermanence as the actual “constant.” In this place, where the past clashes with the present,
a possible future emerges: weaving new stories from memory and change.
In the thick of it
In this painting, the narrative was anchored in slowness and the search for stability and solace.
Since the creative process is immersive, each work evolves spontaneously and intuitively, much like a conversation: reality shows up, speaks its mind, and I respond with color, gesture, and rhythm. Deep in the winter of 2023, at a time that felt like the world had turned upside down, I struggled to find a way to describe
an experience that was both chaotic and frozen. The process took place in a rural village sandwiched between
the Pyrenees and the Black Mountains: an area of severe winds and wild, primal beauty that mirrored my sentiment of being pulled between two contrasting realities.
The process required prolonged stretches of time for the liquid pigments to dry, and while waiting,
I oscillated between the intensity of work and the necessary breaks to catch my breath, gather thoughts,
and find insights. It progressed slowly, amounting to at least fifty layers. As I painted, I tracked
the passage of time in a world that felt unmoving, following the movement of sunbeams crossing the canvas
from morning to evening, and weaving that literal light into the composition. This dramatic shift is portrayed in contrasting colors, managing to hold in tentative equilibrium the dark storm tones, the white of gushing water, the bare branches and decaying leaves. In the midst of it all stand the fluorescent yellow fungus, the vivid, inevitable arrival of magenta blossoms, and the vibrant green of fragile young plants - unmistakable signs of nature renewing and restoring itself.
Stillwater
This painting is inspired by a sprawling, untamed field tucked away within the agricultural landscape of Aude, France. Bordering a forest and a hidden gem of a triangular lake. Among the rolling hills and orderly parcels of wheat, corn, and sunflowers, this wild patch is left entirely to its own devices. A beautiful, uncultivated riot of ancient barley, wild oats, and edible weeds like mallow and dandelion, is allowed to thrive naturally. Wading through a waist-high sea of plants, their stems swaying in the wind, I reach the water’s edge.
Standing and gazing into it is a daily ritual. The tiny pond is a self-sustaining ecosystem of its own, teeming with blue-grey herons, buzzing bees, and marsh plants that draw perfect circles on the water’s surface. On clear days, the distant Pyrenees reflect in its depths. This painting is a meditation on the profound quiet found in simplicity. It explores how many complex layers of life can intertwine, harmoniously, when the earth is simply allowed to do what it does best. A good reminder that waters appearing stagnant are often incredibly deep, purposefully and perpetually in motion just beneath the surface.