Elizabeth Huey's paintings explore human connection and healing. Born from a substratum of expressive paint, the architectural and figural elements in her work hail from a multiplicity of styles and eras. Huey draws imagery from her own photographs as well as an ever expanding collection of found snapshots. Historical research is employed to delve into the complexities of her subjects. Driven to depict the inner motivations of the heroic, Huey’s paintings are portraits of the miraculous. The spatial arrangements and scale shifts support a hypnagogic sense of seeing things from the inside out. One gets the sense that myriad forces are at work in the minds of each protagonist. Ultimately, Huey’s paintings are about remembrance and reconstruction: a totemic reminder of our human capacity to overcome trauma and draw invention and intimacy from catastrophe.
Born in Virginia, Elizabeth Huey earned an MFA from Yale University and a BA in Psychology from George Washington University. She studied painting at both the Marchutz School in Aix-en-Provence, France and the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture in Manhattan. Huey has exhibited both nationally and internationally, and her work is held in museums and other prominent collections. She has been awarded multiple grants and residencies including the Terra Foundation Residency in Giverny, France, a Johns Hopkins University Travel Fellowship, the Artist Research Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and the Alma B Shapiro Award and Artist Residency from Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY. Elizabeth Huey lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Her work has been featured in Anthem, Artforum, Boston Globe, The New York Times, Slate, Vice, Village Voice, Washington Post, among others.