Elizabeth Mead- "Of and between objects and things"

My work considers how our ways of encountering and comprehending objects are shaped by fundamental limits. Rather than possessing complete knowledge through a single moment of observation, our understanding emerges through temporal accumulation—a gradual weaving together of fragmentary views as we move through space. Each perspective we frame represents only a partial truth; the object's totality remains perpetually beyond our grasp, existing in the spaces between our collected glimpses. Lord and Lady Barnard of Raby Castle, County Durham, England and the Yale University Art Gallery, and Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, graciously granted me permission to work with their versions of Hiram Powers "The Greek Slave" and Richard James Wyatt's "Nymph Entering the Bath" resulting in my versions seen here. Each are revealed not as a fixed entity but as an unfolding constellation of encounters across time, space, and the Atlantic Ocean.

Horizon lines: stabilizing / destabilizing

The small delicate porcelain forms along the shelves align themselves with it like edifices against a horizon; we read their shapes without quite making out what they are much like the way in which we read the horizon in Clouds horizon James River Williamsburg. They are both things and projections. The edges reflect back lines of light as though a drawing in space while the paper-thin walls are translucent in some places and worn completely through in others lending a sense of fragility and grace. The warmth of the wood shelf reflects in the white of the porcelain while the white of the porcelain bounces onto the wall and shelf creating a shimmering atmospheric quality reminiscent of the way the air looks over the water on a hot summer day. Reflections and transmitted light, glowing edges and silhouetted forms help them teeter between their being as objects and their being as phenomena of shadow and light. Much like the world at large they are composed of an infinity of disparate elements that come together to form a whole.

 Artist Bio

\ Mead’s photographs, sculptures, and drawings have been exhibited across the U.S. as well as in Australia, England, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Las Palmas, Portugal, and Taiwan. She has designed theatrical productions with theater companies across the U. S. including work with the internationally acclaimed, Tony award winning Theatre de la Jeune Lune. 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).

A recipient of the Japan/US NEA Creative Artist Fellowship (2002-03), Mead spent six months living and working in Japan. She has received recognition for her work in theater by the Dallas Theater League (1998) and a finalist for the Theater Communication Group/NEA Designer Fellowship (1997, 1998). Mead attended the Ecole Internationale de Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France (1995). She has been awarded work-stay residencies at Sculpture Space in Utica, New York (1992), Jentel Artist Residency, Banner, Wyoming (2005), The Prairie Center of the Arts, Peoria, Illinois (2006), Nes Artist Residency Skagaströnd, Iceland (2009), Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, Saratoga, Wyoming (2012), as well as the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center Residency, Friday Harbor, Washington (2011), and at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France (2015, 2018, 2025). She was recently a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome.

She is a professor of Art at William and Mary.