Maria Antelman

Maria Antelman’s beings are fashioned from images of isolated hands, limbs, heads, and eyes—and the joinery between them. Antelman (Greek, born 1971) often photographs herself and her family members; each of the human elements in her work are therefore intimately familiar to her. These pictures of humans are paired with photographs of stone parts, resulting in surprising connections between flesh and mineral, and between permanence and transience. Antelman points out other dualities: “My work often brings together ideas of the past and the future, past technologies and future technologies…. We start from the earth and we return.”

As a structure built of distinct fragments, each work has a unique physical presence. Some are “missing” information, and while viewing them we mentally attempt to fill in those absent pieces. In doing so, we are compelled to recognize the intrinsic connections between disparate parts. Antelman also conveys how our bodies are tools; each component performs a different function. In her work, the apparatus of the human body is not unlike that of a machine. She is attuned to the way that machines can relay information about ourselves, but also how we develop symbiotic relationships with them: “Our eyes have become cameras and cameras have become eyes.”