Tal Engelstein
In Partnership with Artis

Andreana Dobreva

Bulgarian artist Andreana Dobreva (b.1982, Sliven) is a painter whose preferred media is oil on canvas. She studied classical painting in Bulgaria and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (Akademie der Bildende Künste Munich). She currently lives and works in London. 

Dobreva’s interests lie in the unpolished realities of human life and what is beneath the surface of the inner and the outer worlds. These, along with the realities of refugees, human fears and her own history, are reflected in her work. The artist executes her paintings methodically and as a physical act, rather than engaging with an idea that must be fulfilled on the canvas. The pictorial polarities of light and shadow, and the graduation of colour in between are of constant interest to her. Dobreva observes closely the masters of Italian Baroque painting from the 17th and 18th centuries, taking inspiration from them she experiments with complicated compositions, brave juxtapositions between intense primary colours and creates works bursting with elemental energy.  

Kabir Mokamel
In Partnership with Artistic Freedom Initiative

Fatimah Hossaini
In Partnership with Artistic Freedom Initiative

Summerworks
Supported by Art Hub Copenhagen

Summerworks is month-long residency supported by Art Hub Copenhagen and Bikuben Foundation NY. This year, five jury-selected artists will work in two shared studios at EFA and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. On July 25, from 5-8 pm, they will open their studios to the public to share their works and research.

The jury consists of Summerworks alumna Rebecca Krasnik, art historian and curator Louise Banke, and Marie Braad Larsen, curator and head of the Summerworks program at Art Hub Copenhagen.

About the Residents:

Gregor Fuchs is a highly experienced printmaker who embraces the unpredictability of printmaking. He plans to delve into the rich history of American printmakers and share his extensive expertise with his fellow residents.

Laurits Malthe Gulløv employs an experimental and conceptual approach to graphic art, combining various techniques and motifs. His work often explores structural and psychological themes, referencing geology, language, and digitality.

Rosita Kær integrates paper, textiles, garments, publications, objects and images into spatial and architectural installations. Inspired by the Washi Tatougami folding paper case, she will merge her sculptural and textile work with printmaking.

Elisabeth Molin’s work spans photography, video, installation, and artist’s publications. She explores the fringes of space and human perception, drawing inspiration from cartoons to examine themes of transformation and the power dynamics of language and objects.

Adele Rannes is distinguished by her mastery of traditional graphic techniques such as etchings, mezzotints, and burnished aquatints, brings a classic approach to her art. Her work beautifully synergizes light and darkness, and experiments with the intense darkness inherent in graphic prints.

Bjarne Werner Sørensen
Supported by The Danish Art Foundation And the Knud Højgaards Fond

Bjarne Werner Sørensen will be in residence at EFA Studios from April through June. Sørensen’s work consists primarily of painting and prints exploring abstract formalist painting traditions. The works stress movement and contrast with gesturally applied colors and forms that make for energetic compositions. In June he will present his work at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery in New York City.

Sørensen was born in Denmark in 1960 and lives and works in Copenhagen. He graduated from Det Jyske Kunstakademi (The Jutland Art Academy) in Aarhus in 1985. He has exhibited widely in USA, Denmark and elsewhere and has been in artist residencies in Helsinki, Bergen, Paris, Berlin and New York (ISCP). He is a recipient of several grants and awards and his work is represented in numerous public collections and institutions, including The National Gallery of Denmark and The New Carlsberg Foundation.

2023

Bart Was Not Here / Kyaw Moe Khine
In Partnership with Artistic Freedom Initiative

We are pleased to welcome Bart Was Not Here to the studio program for a two-month residency. Kyaw Moe Khine (professionally known as Bart Was Not Here) is a Burmese artist in exile based in New York. Bart’s mediums span from working with large-scale canvases to figurines, sculptural installations, digital illustrations, and still expanding. He explores his art practice through world-building, anthropomorphism, and mythopoeia in a visual language that stemmed from curiosity and escapism–which were his ultimate tools to explore the outside world growing up in an isolated country of Burma. His cinematic compositions and gallows humor can be fully appreciated alongside a riddled commentary on witnessing the past, present, and future unfold simultaneously. Bart’s paintings and sculptures work deal with the themes of violence, worship, voyage, memory, and connection.

Growing up in Burma, an authoritarian country, Bart was frustrated by a corrupted school system, a strict religion, and the inability to assimilate into the conservative Burmese culture. Access to global art and culture through dial-up internet, international films, novels, and magazines found in Burmese bootleg markets provided him a lens to the alternative outside world. Since acquainting with graffiti at 13 years old, he started practicing under the moniker "Bart Was Not Here" to conceal his identity under the regime. Bart graduated from Lasalle College of the Arts as a Fine Arts major in 2018. In 2021, he had to leave his home country due to his involvement in the resistance against the military coup d’état. He was also an artist-in-residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France for 2021-2022.

Vernando Reuben and Mark Anthony Wilson Jr
In Partnership with Calabar Gallery

Hongyun He
Supported by Cultural Department of Munich City

We are pleased to welcome Hongyun He to the studio program for a two-month residency. Hongyun was born in Hunan, China, and is currently based in Munich, Germany. She will be exploring the New York scene and meeting with critics and other artists to share her work and perspective. Hongyun is a material-based artist who experiments with organic and chemical reagents to produce works of emergent complexity and rhythm. During her residency, she will be focusing on works on paper and will participate in Open Studios on October 12–14.

Or Zubalsky, Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne
In Partnership with Eyebeam

For 20 years Eyebeam has been at the forefront of supporting artists who create with technology. The partnership will provide studio space for three artists who often work digitally to explore installation ideas. Or Zubalsky has been developing a work that utilizes software structures as narrative devices for resistance and healing from settler colonialism, focusing on memory and trauma. Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne are working on an "Offset" project focusing on artistic research into emerging carbon markets. The aim of "Offset" is to create unconventional carbon offset mechanisms, installation works, and virtual outcomes that draw attention to and critique the existing carbon offset space.

Or Zubalsky is an artist and educator based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Their work is compelled by curiosity regarding the ways in which the composition and execution of code manifest as political action, capable of both healing and resistance. With a commitment to unlearn and resist settler-colonialism, they engage the complexity that software-based systems afford in order to reflect on, criticize, and intervene in existing systems of power.

Sam Lavigne (b. 1981) is an artist and educator whose work deals with data, surveillance, cops, natural language processing, and automation. His work often takes the form of online interventions that surface the frequently opaque political and economic conditions that shape computational technologies. He has exhibited work at Lincoln Center, SFMOMA, Pioneer Works, DIS, Ars Electronica, the New Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Tega Brain (b. 1982) is an Australian-born artist and environmental engineer whose work examines how technology shapes ecological relations. She has created wireless networks that respond to natural phenomena, systems for obfuscating fitness data, and an online smell-based dating service. Her work has been shown in the Vienna Biennale for Change, the Guangzhou Triennial, and in institutions like the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the New Museum, among others.

Iliana Scheggia and Ramón Ostolaza
In Partnership with Expressiones

Expressiones is a nonprofit organization based in New London CT that brings Latino and Hispanic artists to work in their studios, mount an exhibition, and teach in the local schools. Peruvian artists Iliana Scheggia and Ramón Ostolaza will be doing a week-long exchange at EFA to meet with curators and EFA artists. 

Expressiones is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing the community with quality artistic programming. We celebrate diversity by inspiring the community to immerse themselves in the music, art, and customs of our multicultural population.

Expressiones main program is ArtVenture, which provides culturally competency, relevant and unique experiences, bilingual arts and educational programming for children in New London Public Schools, and in after-school sessions in New London. This program serves to bridge cultural gaps between the diverse communities in the area and to provide arts and other educational programs for children in New London, including a large and growing population from low-income families.

The population served includes among all of them the underserved Latino or Hispanic children in New London. We use the Artists-in-Residence recruited by Expressiones from Latin-America and other professionals. The residency programs offer resources to artists and provide opportunities for our diverse community to strengthen their ability to pursue lifelong learning.

Eliyahu Fatal
Supported by Artis

Eliyahu Fatal, born in 1974 in Israel (in his homeland known as Eli Petel), is a renowned interdisciplinary artist working in the field of conceptual art. In 2000, he graduated with honors from the Faculty of Arts at Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem, where he has been a lecturer since 2002. From 2011 to 2019, he served as head of the Art Department at his alma mater. Eliyahu Fatal's solo exhibitions were presented, among others, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2007, 2006), Dvir Gallery (2009, 2003), Bat Yam Museum (2020), AJU, Los Angeles (2018) le guern gallery Warsaw (2021) Jasmin gallery kyoto (2023) . He has participated in many group exhibitions in Israel and abroad, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2008), ICA Philadelphia (2011), Martin-Gropius-Bau (2005) and the Jewish Museum in Berlin (2009), the Haifa Museum of Art (2011, 2021). His works are in the collections of Tel-Aviv Museum, Israel Museum, Haifa Museum, Ashdod Museum, ORS collection, Leumi Bank collection, Hafenix collection, Paris City collection.

Summerworks
Supported by Art Hub Copenhagen

Four artists have been selected based on an open call by a jury panel consisting of curators Mai Dengsø and Stephanie Cristello, as well as Marie Braad Larsen, project manager and curator at Art Hub Copenhagen.

Summerworks is a partnership residency between Art Hub Copenhagen (AHC), The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (EFA) and Bikuben Foundation Academic Guest House. During their stay in July, the artists will be provided with accommodation on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They will have access to a shared studio at EFA, the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, various programs, workshops, and more.

Statements by the Jury:

Anna Ørberg's intersectional exploration of Monopoly's American facets aligns well with the residency. Her diverse artistic techniques, including etching, screen printing, and photogravure, enable an in-depth exploration of class issues like gentrification, intellectual theft, and economic inequality.

Julie Riis Andersen's exploration of print media and installation delves into the patterns, systems, and symbols of New York's 1960s and '70s art scene. Her visually poetic language blends pop cultural references with art historical mapping.

The juries were excited about Martha Hviid's approach to sound in the context of print, continuing her engagement with linear form and abstraction into adjacent media with local collaborators. Her interest in especially loops, warps and glitches fits both the media-based investigation as well as the infrastructure of New York.

Masar Sohail's conceptual film practice integrates lithography to challenge dominant political discourse and explore representations of masculinity, power, and desire. We are delighted to support their artistic research and unconventional, cross-disciplinary approach to printmaking through the Summerworks residency.

2022

Hinda Weiss
Supported by Artis

Hinda Weiss is a photographer and video artist based in Tel Aviv. Weiss holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from the Midrasha School of Art. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions, group exhibitions, and video screenings in venues such as Ludlow 38, NYC, and Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Weiss has received numerous awards, prizes, and scholarships, including the Artis exhibition fund, Outset Contemporary Art Fund Young International Artist Award, Ostrovsky family fund, Rabinovitz art fund, and Columbia University Dean's traveling grant.

Weiss’ works are compositions of landscapes charged with local histories and echo contemporary human existence. Using video and sound manipulation and digital adaptation techniques, she merges places and times into non-existing yet very familiar environments. In the exhibition space, her installations manifest cultural systems by emphasizing plural focal points, the simultaneity of events, and multiple aspects of time.

Artis

Summerworks
Supported by Art Hub Copenhagen

Summerworks is a month-long residency for four artists and one curator from Denmark supported by Art Hub Copenhagen and the Bikuben Foundation New York. The focus of Summerworks is on graphic work and print. As part of the residency, the curator, the four artists, and four artists selected from EFA’s own community of artists will present an exhibition at EFA in New York City.

The four artists were selected by a jury consisting of Mats Stjernstedt, Director of Malmö Kunsthall and Anne-Mette Schultz, artist and former Summerworks resident.

The jury’s statements:

Benjamin Savi is involved in printing as both an artist and a teacher. His work, which features themes such as counterculture and DIY, lends his practice depth and focus.

Stefan Bakmand’s application and practice reflect his interest in the medium of print and historical image production: for example, through themes such as alchemy.

Viktoria Wendel Skousen aims to portray plants in the New York Botanical Garden: a project that will make excellent use of the residency’s opportunities and involve experimenting with new methods in the EFA workshop.

Rebecca Krasnik’s work examines the technologies and methods that formed the foundation for the historical development of print and text. She is particularly interested in the relationship between the production of images and text.

The curator taking part in the residency was chosen by Art Hub for the following reasons:

In addition to her work as a curator – for example, at Rønnebæksholm and her projects at the Bizarro exhibition venue – Mai Dengsøe has extensive experience in the interpretation and presentation of various artistic practices, on the basis of an ecological, intergenerational and feminist perspective.

Christina Saj
In Partnership with the Ukrainian Artists and Allies League

2020

Nazanin Noroozi
Supported by Alwan for the Arts

2019

Summerworks
Supported by Art Hub Copenhagen

In partnership with Art Hub Copenhagen and Bikubenfoundation’s Academic Guest House, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts will host four Denmark-based artists in New York City for the month of July. The residency will include an individual apartment located on the Upper West Side and access to facilities and a shared studio at EFA in Midtown. The program will focus on specialty printmaking techniques available at the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop and professional development resources offered by the Studio Program.

The artists have been chosen by a professional jury; Alexander Tovborg, Jasper Sebastian Sturup and Ann Sophie Stærk, for their professional work and individual skills.

ABOUT THE RESIDENTS

Wilfred Wagner
Wilfred has been selected on the base of his graphical abilities and capacity to work conceptually. The jury thinks that Wilfred will gain much from the residency in terms of new skills and the possibility to experiment with different techniques in the workshop.

Moa Alskog
Moa was selected by the jury due to her peculiar style and references to ancient Egyptian symbols and fables. The jury thinks that Moas playful universe would translate very well to the graphic felt.

Anne Louise Blicher
Anne Louise has been selected due to her ability to work with different color schemes and because of her strong imagery and language. The Jury thinks Anne Louise’s work would work particularly well as lithography.

Anne Mette Schultz
Anne Mette has been selected due to her playful and wide-ranging praxis. It is clear that she loves to experiment and incorporate new techniques. The jury thinks that Anne Mette will benefit greatly from a graphically orientated residency.

2018-2019

Arab Women Artist Residency
Supported by Edge of Arabia

The EFA Studio Program in partnership with Edge of Arabia hosts a year-long residency for Arab Women Artists including Farah Al Qasimi, Ahaad Alamoudi and Afrah Al Dhaheri. Working from a dedicated studio in the acclaimed 90-studio arts building in Manhattan, the artists get to be part of a vibrant, cooperative community dedicated to fostering professional development and encouraging open exchange between artists, curators, critics, and the public.

The first EFA international partnership resident is Emirati artist and musician, Farah Al Qasimi. Her work locates the fantastic in the everyday and explores how consumer culture seduces people with promises of beauty or self-improvement. She is a recipient of The Aaron Siskind Foundation's 2018 Individual Photographer’s Fellowship and the 2018 NADA New York Artadia Award.

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2017-2018

Residency for Endangered Artists - Syrian Artist Rashwan Abdelbaki
Supported by The Artist Protection Fund, Arte East, and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts

The Artist Protection Fund (APF) is a three-year pilot program at the Institute of International Education, sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The APF makes life-saving fellowship grants to threatened artists from any field of artistic endeavor, and places them at host universities and arts centers in safe countries where they can continue their work.

Since its beginnings as a New York-based programmer in Middle Eastern films, ArteEast has developed into an organization that advocates and supports Middle Eastern artists’ and arts organizations’ engagement with U.S.-based arts communities and audiences. By being responsive to the shifting needs and opportunities on the ground in the region, ArteEast has steadily evolved to become a valued U.S.-based partner for and supporter of artists working in the visual, literary and performance arts, while also expanding the U.S. cultural and philanthropic communities’ understanding of the challenges and opportunities of engaging with the MENA regional arts community.

2015

Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) Regional Residency
Supported by Art Jameel and Edge Of Arabia

2013

Maria Elvira Escallón
Supported by The Embassy of Colombia, Washington D.C.

Maria Elvira Escallón was born in 1954 in London, UK, and she currently lives and works in Bogota, Colombia. Her work is developed around the relation between culture and nature, and construction and deconstruction. Most of the time, her projects take shape as sculptural interventions or installations in usually inaccessible places that the artist documents with photographs. These interventions can be very subtle and almost imperceptible, and sometimes they are the result of a repetitive action, which involves an intense physical part. Furthermore, since 2004 she has being working on a project that addresses the public health system, focusing on the state of neglect of public hospitals. Her work was been included in many art events in Colombia, and abroad, and she has received several awards. Since 2000 she’s been developing projects all around the world, and her work is shown internationally.

Website: http://mariaelviraescallon.org

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