Maya Gelfman
ART Habens
My ideas first come to me as visual fragments and a physical sensation, usually in my hands, of something abstract materializing into tangible form. I start to lay down conceptual and technical premises and then I work my way from there. Funny yet appropriate we should start with the Shell, as this specific piece actually encapsulates exactly that. It ' s the artistic womb from which I emerged, a metaphysical pocket of creation itself.
I started it by lying on the floor in a fetal position and drawing a line around myself, much like a child would draw a line around their palm and fingers. My choice of materials was simultaneously intuitive and cognizant. Introducing different materials layers the works with sub-meanings and shades. It enables me to charge them with the origins of each material while also constituting a new significant synthesis. But I also choose my materials acting upon instincts and what feeling they convey to me. I ' m looking to find a material that harbors the essence of an idea rather than the ability to best simulate it.
I then continued to construct a " bony " structure around my initial fetus form, using iron net and twisted cloth hangers. I wanted to create a cocoon-like shape, then split it open and turn it into an organism that can sustain a memory of life. For this end I used red wool, a material that has a fuzzy almost biological quality to it. I cut each thread by hand and tied them one by one to the skeleton, so that the insides my empty shell were weaved through and through with red plumage. I ended up using more than 300,000 pieces of yarn, and this stage took 6 months. The long and Sisyphean process served as an embodiment of the meticulous process in which a shell is created in nature, one crisp layer at a time.
The Shell was exhibited in a way that frames a particular space which is neither closed nor open. It invited the viewers to go around it but also to
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