Instrument, 2020

Eliot Greenwald  

Eliot Greenwald's paintings map the ever-evolving terrain of individual experience, tracing the distances between subjective reality and the natural world. In his newest work, the artist's car scenes take place amidst exotic, lush fauna. Neon lights emit from each metal facade, shifting in complexion from dull to bright like a human gaze gaining clarity. The car becomes a stand-in of sorts for the viewer themselves, a non-theological spirit which evokes the interior of the mind. Greenwald constructs a type of repetitive continuity between works, single motifs or images reappearing over and over again. This use of repetition, for Greenwald, mirrors the slow evolution of one's cognitive understanding of reality. You don't see one tree, for instance, and suddenly possess a perfect idea of what all trees are. Rather, you see many trees of many shapes and many colors and many sizes, and from this slow accretion of trees, come to develop a personal relationship to trees as a whole. To this end, his imagery is often surreal, perhaps even Dada-esque, in its proportion, shape, and color. He is not interested in realistic representation. The images he puts to his canvases are studies on myth-making, what we do to make sense of our particular location in time and space. They are the products of his own mind, reflections of his particular subjective understanding of what certain objects can, or should, look like.

Eliot Greenwald (b. 1983) is a contemporary American artist who was born and raised in Portland, Maine and now lives and works in Ashfield, MA. Eliot is a self taught artist who has shown throughout the United States as well as globally. Eliot is represented by Harper's in New York City. Recently, Eliot has had solo exhibitions with Harper's (NYC), Taymour Grahne Projects (London), and Hesse Flatow (NYC). He was included in Reflections: Human/Nature at Gana Contemporary in Seoul, South Korea  and was shown at Art Central HK as part of the art fair's curatorial selections. Upcoming shows include solos with Best Western/Marvin Gardens and Harper's in New York. Eliot has been published in Art Maze Magazine, Let's Panic, and featured on Juxtapoz, It's Nice That, and Art News.