Photo courtesy of Jackie Hoving
ARTIST STATEMENT
Although I work in many disciplines, the body of my work should be understood in the context of a collective whole, since it is all in the service of speaking about absence, place, longing, loss, time, and the layering of remembrance. I’m curious about the ways in which light, medium and image can serve one another to create an evocative atmosphere, both evolving and evanescent. The sensation of the momentary grows from a fluidity of experimentation with materials and process; the images are sometimes fragmented and/or degraded, eroding clarity and then re-constituting or reassembling it. Regardless of media, my works rely on the interplay of light and dark, sometimes blurring discernible time, space, and position. The architecture, landscapes and interiors may seem abandoned, in transition or in ruins .There are always shadows that lurk somewhere. It is difficult to capture what is happening in the dark, and often imagine dark things in the shadows. But although we may not see the light, it is always there, always present.”
ABOUT
Elise Kaufman received her MFA from Queens College and her BFA from Pratt Institute. Her work has been exhibited in the United States as well as in Ireland, France, Spain and Italy. Venues include the Albright-Knox Gallery, the Arkansas Art Center, ArtSpace Gallery (New Haven), the Brooklyn Museum, the Hillwood Art Museum, the Kentler International Drawing Space, the Mills Gallery (Boston Center for the Arts), the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, and the Weatherspoon Art Gallery. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections including the Arkansas Art Center, the Ballinglen Art Museum, the Birmingham Art Museum, the Boise Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Cedar Rapids Museum, the Delaware Art Museum, the Fogg Art Museum (Harvard University Museums), and the Werner H. and Sally-Ann Kramarsky Collection.
She has been a repeat Fellow at the Ballinglen Art Foundation (Ireland) and a recent recipient of a Cow House Studio residency in Co. Wexford, Ireland.
Kaufman is a Professor of Art at the Pratt Institute and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts