María-Elena Pombo works through open-ended, interconnected projects that explore how histories, territories, and forms of knowledge are embedded within materials from the earth.
From avocado seeds, mollusk shells collected by restaurant workers, algae and petroleum sourced by individuals, and more. She transforms these materials beyond recognition to open new ways of understanding the world, working through installation, sculpture, video, and actions that play with site-specificity, ephemerality, and participation.
She is an artist in residence at Smack Mellon’s Artist Studio Program and has participated in residencies and fellowships in New York at Yaddo, Wave Hill, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Bronx Museum, and NEW INC, the New Museum’s cultural incubator, as well as internationally at Bienno Borgo deli Artisti (Italy), and more.
Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago and has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the MoMA PS1, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Somerset House, Yamamoto Seika, among others.
She has developed site-responsive public artworks in concrete factories, mechanic shops, and abandoned military structures across NYC.
Her work has been featured in ARTnews, Cultured Magazine, The New York Times, The Slowdown, Metal Magazine, i-D Italia, Vogue México, among others.
Pombo is faculty at Parsons School of Design and has taught at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and New York Botanical Garden. She has lectured widely at museums, universities, artist-run spaces, and community-based programs.
