Ella Taub (b. 1993, St. Petersburg, Russia) is an artist based in Berlin, Germany. Her multidisciplinary practice includes sculpture, painting, video, installation, and photography. In her work, she interweaves personal narratives of belonging, migration, trauma, violence, and interpersonal relationships from an intercultural, female perspective, by frequently use of aged materials, through their original function, she aim to represent the idea of "social skin." while using her own body as a political medium; revealing an intimate exploration Through her auto-archaeological approach; while examining the weight of societal expectations.
Ella has taught sculpture internationally for over a decade, working with cultural institutions, art galleries, and government-supported programs. Currently, she is the Head of the Artist Residency Program at Wehrmuehle Museum (Germany), where she fosters collaboration among emerging artists. Ella's work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions, including at Art Biesenthal (2024), the India Art Fair (2023-2024), Culterim Gallery, Berlin (2022), and the Jerusalem Biennale (2021), which she participated in after only one year of artistic practice.
n addition to her personal practice, she frequently been mentored by emerging artists like Tsibi Geva and Alina Shmukler, she has been featured in The Jerusalem Post (2024), Channel-9 TV (2023), and a 2022 documentary by David Malka. Her work has also been highlighted in Are Magazine. Her exhibitions received coverage in Time Out Magazine (2024), Art-in-Berlin Magazine (2022), and Kunstleben-Berlin.de, with reviews of her solo shows like Set Free by Dr. Dorit Kedar.
Currently, Ella is involved in multiple large-scale projects, including immersive collaborations with video artists and photographers such as Ofek avshalom and rosselo. shmarya, a performance-based project with Berlin-based artists such as the composer Kaan Bulak and Canadian dancer Amanda Donato focused on time and aging.
‘Safe Space’ / installation (2024)
Another textile-based narrative about very personal bonds and connections is illustrated by Taub's installation “Safe Space“ (2024). Her textile sculptures of knotted sheets and curtains of white lace, tulle, and cotton hang from the ceiling like cocoons. She deliberately chose household textiles whose function is to protect and conceal. The artist has left traces of use or soiling on the old textiles she has found and collected, which can be traced back to previous external influences. With this series of works, Taub creates an immersive environment that invites the viewer to engage with the seen and the unseen.
In performances, she slips into the textile cocoons, sometimes staging them with complementary soundscapes and video projections to create a performative dialogue between the body and its environment. Taub attempts to uncover a biographical archaeology that allows her to examine both the role of the material and the role of her body in the world in which she lives. By assembling, discarding, binding, and moving the material, layers are created that are both visual and autobiographical, expressing the tension between the external and the internal, between the visible material and an internal narrative. Each action with the material creates not only a physical volume, but also a conceptual depth that tells a story about the cyclical meaning of time and place. Her intercultural background, which is shaped by her Russian-Israeli identity, is reflected in her work, as she always tries to create a "safe space".
— Madeleine Freund
“Aging plays a central role in my practice, as I treat my fabric sculptures as living organisms that evolve according to the space in which they are presented. The materials I use are organic, so they change, age and decay with me.” – Ella Taub
Wedding Dress / Textile Installations Edition (2022-2025)
A recurring theme in Ella Taub's work is the wedding dress as a symbol and social construction, between her own biography, tradition, and deconstruction.]
Ella’s white textile sculpture 'The Dress I Never Wore' (2024) hangs from the ceiling like a ghostly shell. Red threads, reminiscent of blood vessels or fresh scars, hold together individual fragments of semi-transparent organza fabric. This comes from her mother's bridal shop, where she used to sew wedding dresses, and recalls the post-soviet impressions that shaped Taub's childhood at her mother's side. The red threads can be understood both as a question of what holds a relationship together, and as a psycho-visual gesture that makes internal wounds from the past visible to the outside world. In other works, the wearable garment sculptures also consist of torn, dirty foam rags held together by metal wires. Taub challenges traditional and conservative social notions of marriage, female identity, the outdated image of the bride associated with purity, as well as the individual significance of personal relationships and their fragility. She demonstrates a liberation from past expectations by shedding this highly charged garment as a social skin and beginning a new life cycle.n— Madeleine Freund
„I don’t really emphasise the embroidery technique, but rather use it as a means to express myself, my past and the questions I have in mind about the present reality.“
— Ella Taub
“Sewing was never something she formally learned, but growing up with a single mother who was always sewing led her to find this therapeutic process deeply connected to the body. This connection allows her to bond with her own fables, which, through slow and deliberate labor, evolve alongside her. Without seeking a fixed understanding of herself, she begins a process of fiber loops with careful attention to symbiosis and vulnerability.”
— Michal Krasny
Generation Root / Textile installation (2022)
“Growing up in a complex family dynamic was an ongoing act of cutting ties with old roots that I found held me back, a theme reflected in my early works. My personal migration and transition between cultures became central to my work, as I explore themes of migration, disconnection, and the intricate relationships between self, society, and others. In my art, I frequently use materials like plant roots, soil, and iron chains to symbolise these formative experiences.” — Ella Taub
‘My Skin Cage’ / Video Work (2024)
In the video, the artist is seen wearing one of her white textile sculptures, made of foam rags held together by metal wires. Her writhing and bending movements underscore her attempt to break free. Taub transforms her body into a site of political expression, bearing the weight of past experiences, trauma, violence and questions of social belonging. The textile cover is a tactile metaphor for wounded skin, representing the scars of the Russian-Israeli artist's personal and collective trauma.
In an ambivalent process, the body is both covered in a sense of concealment and exposed without protection. Her movements also evoke a metamorphosis, the revelation of an autobiographical process in which she attempts to regain control. In a continuous and vulnerable process, Taub (re-/de-)constructs experiences and spaces, creating interwoven narratives supported by the materials used. The soundtrack was created in collaboration with composer Kaan Bulak. A muffled Violin can be heard ; reminiscent of the sound a child hears in its mother's womb in response to external vibrations.
— Madeleine Freund