Marking Time: Maps and Memories

Elizabeth Curren

Curated by Gaby Mizes

Wednesday September 4th, 2024 to Saturday September 28th, 2024

Times, places and memories are a strong influence in my life as an artist and as an individual. This exhibit presents each of my pieces as markers in this personal timeline. Here, collage is not only a technique but is a metaphor, connecting these themes which are central to my work as an artist. Moreover printmaking, drawing and painting, along with incorporating found images, allows me to create layers, and add texture while using these elements in both my artist’s books and two-dimensional pieces.

The artist’s books examine synesthesia, stellar cartography, and an imaginary language. Two artist’s books portray the vividness of colors in memory; Canson paper provides the needed intensity, and each page is edged with screen-printed paper as well as watercolor and gouache squares chosen to match the shades from the Crayola box of childhood. Time spent observing the night skies, and growing up with the space program, engenders imagined constellations and galaxies in two books produced in collaboration with bookbinder, Jane Griffith. The repairs to the streets in a beach community have their own artistry: swirls and loops that seem so intentional that it is as if there is a secret language that has been embedded into the road’s surface.

The two-dimensional collage pieces freeze moments and events that influence my view of the world, whether it be the excitement of watching sailboats competing under a full moon on Narragansett Bay; the harrowing moment of being in a room struck by lightning; chasing solar and lunar eclipses; or the experience of avoiding the supernatural nemesis of my childhood. Since collaborative work is a key part of artmaking, many elements in the collages are recycled from former collaborations, or are objects and ephemera, all of which hold personal meaning.

Each work is a narrative in my timeline.

The Taste of Lime Green Is Summer
Elizabeth Curren
Watercolors, gouache, pen, with collaged elements on Canson paper and board
9 x 11.5”
$800