Maya Gordon
About the artist
An artist dealing with many techniques, including drawing, painting, collage and installation, she graduated from the Bezalel School of Fine Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem. She also completed her postgraduate studies at Atelier 63 in Haarlem and at the Academy of Jan van Eyck in Maastricht.
She presented her works, among others, at the following exhibitions: “Zuzanna Ginczanka. Only happiness is real life” in 2015 at the Museum of Literature in Warsaw and in 2016 at the Museum of the History of Photography in Kraków; “Rhetorical Figures. Warsaw Architectural Sculpture 1918-1970” in 2015 and “Medusa Raft” in 2006 at the Museum of Sculpture Xawery Dunikowski in Królikarnia, a branch of the National Museum in Warsaw; “Plica Polonica” in 2014 and “Intimate Architecture, Abandoned Architecture” in 2006 at the Kronika Center for Contemporary Art in Bytom; “Golden Hands” in 1995 at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Israel.
Since 1975, she has been living and working in Amsterdam.
A Story from My Childhood
In 2019, as part of the Narrations Festival in Gdańsk Maya Gordon presented a large-scale object – an inflatable teapot – which is an evocation of one of the magical objects found in her family cupboard. Reconstructed by the artist, the treasure remembered from her childhood emphasizes the richness of her memories by its big size. On one side of the 3.5-meter-high teapot, Maya paints herself as a little girl taking dance steps, while on the other side as a mature woman, dancing with the same energy as the little girl. Dance which serves here as a metaphor for life is depicted as a continuous and creative process.
Maya Gordon’s recreated teapot will constitute the center of her performance during which the artist will talk with Tadeusz Woleński, a Polish intellectual living in Tel Aviv and Athens. The stories from her childhood are her memories which relate to the objects from the past as well as people close to her. Maya’s story begins in Poland, from which she was forced to emigrate with her family to Jerusalem. After studying art in Israel, she chose Amsterdam as her permanent home. She misses Poland and Israel. She tries to be in both countries several times a year. Maya is an extremely talented artist and a wonderful, modest and exceptional person. Her works speak of herself, her keen observations and vivid memories. Her concern for memory is an essential part of her being and work.