Elisheva Biernoff

Elisheva Biernoff’s work ranges from monumental installations to tiny hyper-realist paintings. In each mode, the artist explores the “intersection of the spectacular and the everyday.” Often,her concerns relate to humans interacting with nature.

In At Home, we are invited to contemplate two found—and carefully recreated—images together, noting their similarities and differences, and perhaps constructing a story or timeline to link the two. Using paint on plywood, Biernoff faithfully reproduces two unrelated vintage snapshots. Each depicts a middle-aged woman in a domestic setting, responding to nature. In one, the figure leans in to admire or adjust a bouquet of red roses. Her room is overladen with decoration— wallpaper, chandelier, porcelains, even her dress—featuring stylized versions of natural subjects. In the second image, the subject appears on an outdoor patio, protected from the elements by her fur coat and sunglasses, looking scornful while the exotic plants seem to close in on her. Where one subject reaches toward domesticated flowers, this woman recoils from the seemingly untamed flora.