History’s Shadow
2009 — present

Through the x-ray, the artworks of origin become de-familiarized and de-contextualized, yet acutely alive and renewed. Culled from archives and re-photographed by the artist, the spectral qualities of these renderings are like transmissions from the distant past, conveying messages across time.

Library of Dust
2005 — 2006

“. . . these canisters hold the cremated remains of patients from an American psychiatric hospital. Oddly reminiscent of bullet casings, the canisters are literal gravesites. Reacting with their ash inhabitants, the canisters are now blooming with secondary minerals, articulating new metallic landscapes.”

— Geoff Manaugh, Contemporary

The Mining Project
1987 — 2007

“. . . Maisel has succeeded in mapping the fictive terrains of the unconscious, of nightmares and hallucinations. He has also used the camera’s objectifying optics to form cartographies of the irrational and the perverse, the preconscious and the primordial . . .”

— Robert Sobieszek, Archaeopsychic Vistas

Oblivion
2004 — 2006

“This is not the first time you’ve seen an overhead shot of L.A.’s looping freeway interchanges, but Maisel abstracts them and everything else here until the city appears depopulated, absolutely postapocalyptic.”

— Vince Aletti, The New Yorker

Terminal Mirage
2003 — 2005

“The series Terminal Mirage . . . is as visually mesmerizing as an abstract canvas, with its sharp geometries and green flourescence. The end of the world surely never looked this good. So good, in fact, that it is often difficult to know what we are seeing . . .”

— Lyle Rexler, Photograph

The Lake Project
2001 — 2002

“In Mr. Maisel’s photos, the vistas are majestic, terrifying, and weirdly beautiful. They seem more intimate than microscopic data, vaster than extraterrestrial space.”

— Amei Wallach, The New York Times

The Forest
1985 — 1986

As an archetype throughout human history, the forest has been full of enigmas and contradictions. It serves as shelter for the beginning of human civilization, and yet is encroached upon, exploited, and destroyed as part of civilization’s expansion and progress.

Mount Saint Helens
1983 — 1984

A doorway opened into another world, a primordial past, a time of pre-history. Geologic forces transformed nearly the entirety of the landscape, offset only by the logging industry’s efforts to reign on an equally potent scale.