Elena Dorfman is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work explores the disparity between image and reality, as well as the intersection of fiction and representation. Over her three-decade career, she has addressed real-world issues such as marginalized communities, environmental degradation, and political manipulation through a diverse range of techniques.
The artist’s groundbreaking series Still Lovers (2004), focused on real life relationships between people and artificial sexual surrogates. This work became a cultural touchstone and inspired the film Lars and the Real Girl, as well as numerous documentaries. More recently, Dorfman shifted her focus away from socio-cultural themes to environmental issues, including Empire
Falling (2013), which depicted the rewilding and repurposing of abandoned rock quarries in the American Midwest, and Sublime: The L.A. River (2015), which explored the Los Angeles River as a metaphor for the tension between nature and civilization. Her series Transmutation, (2018), featured large-scale Jacquard tapestries and photographs that incorporated precious
metals and mixed media.
Her latest work, THE DREAM & THE LIE, is a feature-length, multi-screen immersive film installation composed entirely of rarely-seen, Cold War era propaganda films.
Dorfman’s work has been exhibited globally at venues such as the Fondazione Prada, Palazzo
Strozzi, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and is held in numerous public and private collections. She has published several monographs, including Empire Falling (Damiani, 2013), Fandomania: Characters & Cosplay, (Aperture, 2007), and Still Lovers (Channel, 2005)
Elena Dorfman is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work explores the disparity between image and reality, as well as the intersection of fiction and representation. Over her three-decade career, she has addressed real-world issues such as marginalized communities, environmental degradation, and political manipulation through a diverse range of techniques.
The artist’s groundbreaking series Still Lovers (2004), focused on real life relationships between people and artificial sexual surrogates. This work became a cultural touchstone and inspired the film Lars and the Real Girl, as well as numerous documentaries. More recently, Dorfman shifted her focus away from socio-cultural themes to environmental issues, including Empire
Falling (2013), which depicted the rewilding and repurposing of abandoned rock quarries in the American Midwest, and Sublime: The L.A. River (2015), which explored the Los Angeles River as a metaphor for the tension between nature and civilization. Her series Transmutation, (2018), featured large-scale Jacquard tapestries and photographs that incorporated precious
metals and mixed media.
Her latest work, THE DREAM & THE LIE, is a feature-length, multi-screen immersive film installation composed entirely of rarely-seen, Cold War era propaganda films.
Dorfman’s work has been exhibited globally at venues such as the Fondazione Prada, Palazzo
Strozzi, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and is held in numerous public and private collections. She has published several monographs, including Empire Falling (Damiani, 2013), Fandomania: Characters & Cosplay, (Aperture, 2007), and Still Lovers (Channel, 2005)