Walking into the Elise Siegel exhibition at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects is walking into a magical world of beings from another time – perhaps the past, the future, or both simultaneously. Her sculpted, removable heads placed on blurred torsos create a haunting ensemble as a group, with their hollowed-out eyes staring blankly into a space beyond, never quite reaching another head’s gaze. Carefully placed and lit by Siegal herself, the stationary march of dismembered heads emanates stillness, loneliness and fear. But move closer, walk through this world of silent heads, converse with each one separately, and their silence transforms into personality and mood. The tilt of the head, the color as it thickens or thins lips, the sizes of eyes with wide or narrow eye sockets drawn with or without eyebrows, the mottled or smooth or skin, the colors in general – somehow each being becomes alive and strong-willed. There’s the coquettish femme fatal, the abused child asking for love, the servant girl demanding her rights…. I suspect that with each viewing, the stories change. This pliability, the living, pulsing life that emanates within these voiceless creatures perhaps ultimately is the magic of this show. It remains up through Dec. 9.