Elizabeth Mead

Mead’s sculpture and drawings have been exhibited across the U.S. as well as in Iceland, Italy, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Portugal, Australia, and England. She has designed more than two-dozen theatrical productions including work with the internationally acclaimed, Tony award winning Theatre de la Jeune Lune. She has had over two-dozen solo exhibitions and her sculpture and drawing have been included in more than fifty group exhibitions.

A recipient of the Japan/US NEA Creative Artist Fellowship (2002-03), Mead spent six months living and working in Japan. Mead has received recognition for her work in theater by the Dallas Theater League (1998) and the Theater Communication Group/NEA Designer Fellowship (1997, 1998). Mead attended the Ecole Internationale de Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France (1995). She was awarded a work-stay residency at Sculpture Space in Utica, New York (1992). Mead was awarded a Nes Artist Residency (2009) in Skagaströnd, Iceland, where she examined experiential aspects of landscape and the ways environmental cues connect us to the world. Last year she was awarded residencies at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, Saratoga, Wyoming as well as the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center Residency, Friday Harbor, Washington. She has been a visiting artist and artist in residence at numerous distinguished institutions including The Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, England (2001, 2002, 2003, 2013), Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo, Japan (2002-03), Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota (2002, 2004), Pacific Northwest College of Art (1994, 2000), Southern Methodist University (1993,1997), Burren College of Art, Co. Clare, Ireland (1995). Later this summer Mead will return to London where she will have a sculpture exhibition "Material Matters" at the Materials Museum, an exhibition of drawings at the Slade School of Fine Art and she will also curate an exhibition, "The Order of Things" from the museum collections at UCL. She is a member of the faculty at The College of William and Mary.

Revisiting Elizabeth Mead’s Various objects: Things on the horizon and Inklings

This work is about looking. About taking the time to really look. I am not trying to tell you anything. I am inviting you to take a moment, stop what you are doing, just simply look and, perhaps, begin to see. I am always reminded of what Ivo Salvini says in Fellini's La Voce della luna,  "I believe that if there were a bit more silence, if we all were a little bit quieter…perhaps then we could understand." These forms are simple, yet they take time to reveal themselves. They take time to understand.

I understand the world through physicality, location and through my mind. The largest expanse of space sits within my head. There the vastness of all I encounter physically merges with those moments just out of reach, those moments of discovery.