Artist Elizabeth Scarborough presents a series of complex narrative paintings that incorporate magical elements. See more of her portfolio on her website.
“La Belle” (diptych – left side) mixed media on panel, 8” x 6”
I’ve always found life kaleidoscopic—a bombardment of images and meanings from disparate sources presented simultaneously to a single observer.
“La Belle (diptych – right side) mixed media on panel, 8” x 6”
My art captures that sensation, deconstructing the images from their sources and creating a new narrative in a singular dimension; resolving the complex, interrelated worlds with intersecting lines, color palette and figurative placement.
“Old Hollywood” mixed media on panel, 8” x 6”
My style is magical, with influences from photo realism to film noir to Escher—representational art on the verge of entering a broader plane. Each of these small works presents a “play of life,” the narrative poised to move, the observer encouraged to set the work in motion.
“The Butterfly Garden” mixed media on panel, 8” x 6”
With that motion, the observer becomes part of the piece, no continuation being the same; becomes part of the kaleidoscopic vision I see as I envision the creation of the piece.
“The City Chains” mixed media on panel, 8” x 6”
Art, artist and observer all join together to engender an emotional response based on each of their own uncertain places in the world.
“The Women of Nine to Five” mixed media on panel, 8” x 6”
This style reflects both world-shaking events and daily experience.
“The Content Maiden” mixed media on panel, 8” x 6”
The time I spent at New York University working on my Masters of Art overlapped 9/11. On my way to the campus where I also worked, it was clear something was terribly wrong. I was fortunate enough not to cross over into Manhattan, but took refuge in a Hoboken apartment where I watched the towers fall.
“The Old Man Time” mixed media on panel, 8” x 6”
This event inspires my work. I witnessed massive, fixed structures fragment and reality become surreal. I make sense of the chaos by imposing new narratives on shards of impressions from my experiences today.
“The Glass House” mixed media on panel, 5” x 5”
I now live in San Francisco with my husband, Kouri, and newborn son, Utah. San Francisco has influenced my work as well. My characters enter on a stage of compressed cityscapes full of intersecting lines and fluid elements consuming the entire space of the canvas.
“The Salton Sea Web” mixed media on panel, 8” x 6”
Every experience is a conglomeration of multiple, simultaneous events weighted with past memory, present experience and anticipation of the future. Who is to say that the narrative creating from fragments of these events is less real than the surreal world?
Artist Elizabeth Scarborough invites you to follow her on Instagram.