MOCA GA / Calendar

In the fall of 2014, I organized my studio, as well as rooms in my house, taking off the top layer of unwanted stuff, clearing the way to see and think more clearly, and to recognize connections in my artwork over many years. Ordering space became a focus in my new drawings, architectural yet unrealistic, presenting shapes without true function. Pages were broken up in ways that felt meditative, the structure of grids regulating and introducing the notion of repositories, and circles referencing wholeness, eternal cycles and portals. Touching and seeing, with fresh eyes, objects in my studio and house triggered memories and associations. I categorized and archived some of the papers and objects, especially from my father’s family who tended to keep things, beautiful objects to the ordinary. In paper pulp, plaster, and aluminum, I molded some of the “finer” objects passed down from my grandparents and great-grandparents. I used materials accumulated through the years: cotton sock tops, Fabriano Mill paper samples, odd pieces of fabric, suture and cotton threads, bronze papers left behind by a dear friend, a tattered quilted bedspread, now cut, painted and stitched. As I developed the pieces, they began to play with one another, my father’s 8mm home movies influencing drawings, stitchery, and molded objects. How have the things around me affected the way I live my life, my approach to making art, my comfort/discomfort in physical spaces, and how I share my past? During a residency at VCCA, I discovered a poem by Ha Jin who had also been a fellow there. The Past connected so closely to my work that I have carried it with me ever since and, with permission, the poem is part of my installation.

Elizabeth Lide is the recipient of a 2015/2016 Working Artist Project Fellowship from the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA GA), selected by Saisha M. Grayson, Assistant Curator Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum.

She is a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina and has a BFA from the University of Georgia and an MFA from Georgia State University.

She has been awarded residency fellowships at The MacDowell Colony, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), The Hambidge Center, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland; and was an artist-in-residence with The University of Georgia Department of Art in Cortona, Italy.

Her solo exhibitions have included The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Sandler Hudson Gallery, The Arts Festival of Atlanta, La Mama in New York City, SECCA in Winston-Salem NC, and Window on Gaines in Tallahassee FL. Her work has been in 75 group exhibitions including MOCA GA, The High Museum of Art, Carlos Museum at Emory University, A.I.R. Gallery in New York City, Atlanta College of Art, The University of Maryland, Carlsberg Glytotek Museum in Copenhagen, The Chautauqua Exhibition of American Art, Georgia State University, The Upstairs in Tryon NC, Brenau College, The Swan Coach House and Eyedrum in Atlanta.

Her artists’ books have been collected by the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, The University of Damascus, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, Emory University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Iowa, The ACA Library at SCAD, Ruth and Marvin Sackner Collection, North Carolina Writers’ Network, and Minnesota Center for Book Arts. Her drawings are in collections at The High Museum of Art, MOCA GA and in numerous private collections.

She has been a graphic and package designer for the industrial designer Raymond Loewy in New York City and design director of Art Papers magazine. She has taught art as an adjunct professor at Georgia State University, Atlanta College of Art and Agnes Scott College; and from 2004 to 2014 at The Paideia School.