Elise Gagliardi – Contemporary Photography

Elise Gagliardi Bio:

Elise Gagliardi is an experimental multi-media artist. She studies photography at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She graduated with her BFA in 2006. Her work has been exhibited nationally. It has been featured in various publications. She currently works as a curator and a mother raising her three young children.

Since becoming a mother she has embraced a heritage of storytelling. In her work, she introspectively examines her relationship to the matriarchal figures in her life and contemplates her own legacy.

Her work is best described through the words of Author Joseph Campbell in what he describes as “The Myth of the Eternal Return”.

Every flower carries its own seed. It may only bloom for a moment, but it can continue to live through its own death and rebirth as an endless cycle.

Drawing from nostalgic memories, photographs, and stories she builds whimsical, ephemeral memorials.

These memorials are often centered around family and a sense of place. In each piece she makes obscure, and personal references to motherhood, legacy, dependency, permanence, and impermanence.

For her, creating art is an act of accounting, remembering, and holding space for those fleeting moments. Her art practice is an act of “planting seeds” for rebirth.

She works in a variety of mediums including installation, photography, painting, and mixed media collage. She uses literal and symbolic imagery that varies in each work. She’s interested in creating deeply introspective spaces that are also interactive. This interaction is an invitation for the viewer to consider the importance of their own “Myth of Eternal Return,” and personal history.

 

Exhibitions:

2021 Plug Projects “Run Run Quiet”
2021 Roaring Artist Gallery Group Show, “Connections”
2020 Stay at Home Gallery Group show Hope/Revolution Paris, TN
2020 Lodger, Uninvited Guest
2020 Women Made Gallery “Loss” Virtual exhibit Chicago, IL
2020 Women Made Gallery “Home” Virtual Group Exhibit Chicago, IL
2020 Interurban Art House “Who does she think she is” Overland Park, KS
2019 Epsten Gallery “Look me in the eye portrait of Kansas City” Overland Park, KS
2019 SNAP Gallery Solo show, Kansas City Artist Coalition Kansas City, MO
2018 Beco Gallery Solo Show, Kansas City, MO
2017 Cafe Europa Union Hill, Kansas City MO
2008-11 Hassle Castle annual open studios, Kansas City, MO
2008 Kansas City Artist Coalition annual art Auction
2006 Center for Fine arts Photography, Juried show, Fort Collins CO
2006 Hidden trace of methods, BFA Senior exhibition Boulder, CO

Work and Internships:

2018-Current Beco Gallery Curator Kansas City, MO 64108
2020 Artist Inc program through Mid-America Arts Alliance
2020-Current Host and Director of Kansas City Artists Critique Group
2017- Current Private Drawing and painting lessons/workshop
2012-2018 Motherhood self Assigned Residency
2007 Kauffman entrepreneur class with the Arts Incubator Kansas City
2006 Photography Assistant/intern, Alex Sweetman, Professor
Art and Art History, University of CO Boulder