Artist Bio:

Elizabeth Addison is a San Francisco Bay Area visual artist, curator, and educator whose works are included in The California Endowment permanent collection and collected by numerous private and public collectors. Her primary media include experimental printmaking, installation, audio and digital media.

Addison’s most recent works are in response to visual connections and functional similarities between the microscopic and the cosmic realms. Informed by the relationship between science and artistic vision, she invokes the threshold created at their intersection. Her liminal environments reflect upon humankind and its relationship with nature, science, and the comparison between belief and data-driven conclusions.

A 15-year plus artist participant in SOMArts annual Día De Los Muertos, Ms. Addison’s work has been featured at SOMArts, The California Endowment, The Marin Foundation, Abrams Claghorn Gallery, Claudia Chapline Gallery, The Institute of Noetic Sciences, The O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, The Berkeley Civic Center, Kala Art Institute, John F. Kennedy University Gallery, The Barbara Anderson Gallery, Addison Street Windows, and Oakopolis. She is an Artist-in-Residence at the Kala Art Institute, NCWCA professional development chair, a WEAD (Women’s Environmental Artists’ Directory) member.

Artist Statement:

In and out of my studio, I conduct deep investigations and layers of discovery – literally, conceptually, and technically – in a fugue-like creative process. A typical project begins when an idea or image – like a micrometeorite – presents itself. My satisfaction lies in discovering unique ways to interpret the idea or imagery and, in turn, the intellectual and research investigation it ignites.

I love the play of visual depth masquerading as something simple, and, conversely imbuing the simple and minute with a sense of monumentality. Monoprint, my primary medium, allows me to accomplish this most successfully. Monoprint is a form of printmaking that contains images, textures, patterns and other elements that can be made only once, producing singular impressions as opposed to editions of identical multiples. Monoprint is also the freest, most experimental and painterly of printmaking methods. I have often referred to it as painting with a 600-pound brush.

My prints are composed of many layers, burying and revealing imagery with each pass. They are also “built up” with a variety of techniques that include direct painting, markmaking, stencils, chine collé, impromptu methods, and paper litho. I adapted the paper litho (photocopy image transfer) into a non-toxic and signature technique; an offset process, it usses photocopies as a resist printing plate in lieu of a stone or metal lithography plate. The imperfect nature of this process, in particular, gives each print a unique presence.

Ultimately, I integrate my creative and intellectual investigations into a visual essence that not only frames my subject, but also illuminates the aspects I find fascinating.