María-Elena Pombo (b. 1988, Caracas, Venezuela) 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.
Pombo has participated in residencies and fellowships at Smack Mellon, Yaddo, Wave Hill, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and NEW INC, the New Museum’s cultural incubator. In 2027, she will be the inaugural Judith Godwin Fellow at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP).
Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago and has been exhibited at MoMA PS1’s Greater New York (2026), the Bronx Museum’s AIM Biennial (2024), Somerset House (London), Gewerbemuseum Winterthur (Switzerland), Grand-Hornu (Belgium), and Yamamoto Seika (Osaka). She has also developed site-specific public artworks in beauty salons, concrete factories, mechanic shops, and abandoned military structures across New York City.
Pombo received the 2021 London Design Biennale Theme Medal and grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, Queens Council on the Arts, and New York Restoration Project. Her work has been featured in ARTnews, Cultured, The New York Times, The Slowdown, METAL Magazine, i-D Italia, and Vogue México.
Pombo was 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.
