The short film Studio Visit with Maya Attoun is available to watch at the top of the page.
Maya Attoun, a unique and creative force in contemporary art, invites audiences into her world through an array of artistic mediums such as drawings, sculptures, videos, engravings, and installations. Her oeuvre is marked by profound research on cultural patterns and distinguished figures from literature and science. By incorporating these elements, she creates a captivating poetic expression that both challenges and intrigues viewers. To fully appreciate her intricate works, one must delve deeper into the inspirational sources behind them.
To gain a deeper understanding of Attoun’s artistic process and her affinity for intense imagery, we encourage viewers to watch the accompanying video at the top of the page, where she provides personal insights into her creative journey.
Attoun’s art installations are an eclectic fusion of murals, prints, sculptures, ready-mades, and sound art. Guided by nonlinear movements from the outset, she consciously incorporates various disturbances into her work—entanglements, knots, flaws, irregularities, folds—turning seeming chaos into a captivating artistic language. Her initial drawings serve as project blueprints, evolving into multidimensional pieces, often including collaborations with other artists in sound, video, and text.
A testament to her artistic dexterity, Attoun seamlessly weaves together aspects of art history, popular culture, scientific paradigms, literary genres, and personal narrative. Her work explores diverse themes from cultural history and modernity to the intersections of myth, narrative, and science. There are several recurring motifs in her creations, notably Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, knot theory, science fiction, and Neo-Gothic elements.
A closer look at her fascination with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein reveals the classic tale’s influence on Attoun’s work. The story, characterized by its exploration of creation, destruction, and the blurred lines between humanity and monstrosity, resonates deeply within her pieces. The novel’s complex interplay of themes contributes to the depth and complexity of Attoun’s art.
These themes, each carrying unique cultural and historic undertones, are inventively merged by Attoun using a method she dubs ‘hypertextualization in art.’ This technique reflects our interaction with visual and textual data and how this data continuously strives to dominate an ever-expanding virtual and mental space.
The featured video Studio Visit with Maya Attoun is part of the web series Yotsrim by Shachaf Dekel. Yotsrim includes five seasons and 73 episodes. The series won the Best Documentary award at the NYC Web Fest in 2019.
