Elizabeth Neel
Elizabeth Neel (b. 1975, Stowe, Vermont) lives and works in New York.
Elizabeth Neel’s large scale paintings on canvas and works on paper extend her interest in the externalisation of physical and psychological experience via abstraction. Using a diverse vocabulary of mark-making tools, including fingers, rags, brushes, mono-printing techniques and rollers, Neel’s paintings are ripe with emotive lyricism suggestive of the correlative and repetitious cycles of daily life.
Analogous marks appear and reappear throughout her compositions–flat opaque swaths of white, extended droplets of paint, sweeping arches, and textural clouds of color occupy the raw canvases as cooperative forces to build dynamic visual equations. These marks act as architectural or bodily supports, anchors for which to centre or contain forces of energy and movement that ripple through the paintings. Switching from vertical to horizontal, the marks act as points of reference and punctuations to orient the space of her compositions and to invite the viewer to absorb and consume their connections.
Neel graduated from Columbia University with an MFA in 2007. Recent and current solo exhibitions include: The Ghosts of My Friends, Vielmetter, Los Angeles, US (2023); Limb after Limb, Pilar Corrias, London (2021); Life in Halves, Susanne Vielmetter (2020); Nightjars and Allies, Pilar Corrias (2019); Tangled on the Serpent Chair, Mary Boone Gallery (2018); Claw Hammer, Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles Projects (2017); Vulture and Chicks, Pilar Corrias Gallery, London (2016); Lobster with Shell Game, Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles Projects (2015); The People, the Park, the Ornament, Pilar Corrias, London (2014); 3 and 4 before 2 and 5, Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York (2013); Routes and Pleasures, Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles Projects (2012); Sphinx Ditch, Pilar Corrias, London (2011); Leopard Complex, Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York (2011); Stick Season, curated by Fionn Meade at SculptureCenter, New York (2010). Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at Victoria Miro, London (2018); Moore Building, presented by Larry Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch, Miami Beach (2017); Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai (2016); Howick Place, London (2014); Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York (2014); STUDIOLO, Zurich (2012); Cluj Museum, Cluji-Napoca (2012); Prague Biennale 5 (2011); and Mother’s Tank Station, Dublin (2011).