Artist Biography

Elizabeth Virginia Levesque is a multidisciplinary artist living in Philadelphia. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA, after receiving an Associate of Applied Arts from Tidewater Community College of Norfolk, VA.

Her works have been shown in group exhibitions in the Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center, Portsmouth, VA; Rothick Art Haus, Anaheim, CA; Ayden Gallery, Vancouver, BC Canada; Articulated Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art of Virginia, Virginia Beach, VA; Lorrie Saunders Art Gallery, Norfolk, VA; Jarrod Fergeson Gallery, Farmville, VA; Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and a solo show at The Little Volcano, Asheville, NC.

Elizabeth specializes in oil painting and assemblage sculpture and also practices illustration.

Education

• 2019 – Bachelor of Fine Arts and Certificate, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• 2013 – Private instruction under artists Angela Cunningham of Asheville, NC & Brett Edenton of Chicago, IL

• 2012 – Associate of Applied Arts, Tidewater Community College, Norfolk, VA

Group Exhibitions

• 2019 – 118th Annual Student Exhibition – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• 2018 – 117th Annual Student Exhibition – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• 2018 – Merge Visible – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• 2015 – Samhain – The Little Volcano – Asheville, NC

• 2013 – Numerology – Alchemy NFK Gallery – Norfolk, VA

• 2013 – Speaking in Tongues 2 – Black Vulture Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

• 2013 – Creative Variations – Portsmouth Art & Cultural Center, Portsmouth, VA

• 2012 – Hell Hath No Fury – Rothick Art Haus, Anaheim, CA

• 2012 – Into the Void – Ayden Gallery, Vancouver BC Canada

• 2012 – I Like Soup – Museum of Contemporary Art of Virginia, Virginia Beach, VA

• 2012 – Marvelous Humans – Articulated Gallery, San Francisco, CA

• 2012 – 41st Annual Student Exhibition – Tidewater Community College, Portsmouth, VA

• 2012 – New Waves 2012 Juried Group Show – Museum of Contemporary Art of Virginia, Virginia Beach, VA

• 2011 – Multiversal – Wynnwood Art District, Miami, FL

• 2011 – Spirit Board – Articulated Gallery, San Francisco, CA

• 2011 – Friends – Lorrie Saunders Art Gallery, Norfolk, VA

• 2011 – Speaking in Tongues – Black Vulture Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

• 2011 – 40th Annual Student Group Show – Tidewater Community College, Portsmouth, VA

• 2011 – Head, Fingers, Knees and Toes Group Show – Contemporary Art Center of VA, Virginia Beach, VA

• 2010 – Friendly Ghosts & Pretty Gross – Jarrod Fergeson Gallery, Farmville, VA

Curatorial Experience

• 2020 – PAFA Alumni Exhibition – Borrelli’s Chestnut Hill Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

• 2019 – Capacity of Color – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• 2018 – Insider Art Show – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

• 2012 – I Like Soup – Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA

Artist Statement

When do we lose the ability to play pretend? When do we realize magic isn’t real? Does the weight of reality and eventual adulthood dim the light of all our play? Do we experience regret for the loss of our unmediated imagination and attempt to will it back? My work explores these questions and my grief for childhood moments lost in unselfconscious play. My paintings and assemblages are interrogations of this time of change. Is it an immeasurable transition? Is this moment truly the end of ability, or when permission to exercise it is withdrawn by society?

Children may seem to live small lives, but the worlds of their imaginations extend far beyond the limits imposed by space, time, and societal expectations. My paintings and assemblages build the worlds I used to access effortlessly and make them visible to share. My paintings are a window to look through. My assemblages are stages for fantastic stories to play out. Their visual narratives don’t show the beginning or end of a story. My audience arrives in the middle, much like we arrive in our dreams.

My works play with depth and flattened shapes to mirror stylized cartoons and toys sold to children. The choice to borrow from these relics of childhood is purposeful. For many people my age, these toys are the cartoonish archetypes of a cultural collective unconscious. They were tools used by children to share their inner lives and made it possible to play together in overlapping worlds. They are the raw materials for a child’s myth-making.

I ignore the rigid laws of form and perspective because they would only serve to ground my work in a mundane reality. Vivid and discordant colors remind viewers that my landscapes are of a strange land. They are vaguely threatening. Children play the lead role in their stories, and protagonists need danger to transform into heroes.

Though my assemblages and paintings explore the same psychic space, constructing an assemblage comes closest to the feeling of childhood play I alluded to. Using childish craft materials to build diorama-like spaces, I hope to stir a memory of grade school art class in my audience: the sense of play, the smell, and the taste of the paste. Their process reenacts the memory of building structures for my toys to exist when store-bought doll houses or plastic castles inevitably fell short of my imagination’s needs.