My paintings create private worlds in which overlooked, sometimes broken fragments of everyday objects, tiny natural forms, and space itself become animate and charged with subjective meaning. The work grows from a desire to slow down, look closely, and define my own sense of reality while staying in conversation with the larger world. As Donald Winnicott wrote, artists carry “the urgent need to communicate and the still more urgent need not to be found.” My work moves along that edge. My iterative process becomes a kind of personal laboratory for examining how perception forms, adapts, and holds its integrity in a large, loud world.
Each piece develops through an extended process moving across photography, gouache, and oil. I construct miniature environments from domestic and natural objects, photograph them to capture details the eye misses, then translate them into gouache studies that I photograph again and enlarge, surfacing new marks and pentimenti.
The final paintings synthesize these layers, holding the illusionistic space of photography in tension with the physical presence of paint. Because this process unfolds over months or years, the resulting spaces offer a reality that is layered and in flux rather than fixed, treating not-knowing as necessary for both discovery and communication.
Elisa earned her BFA in Printmaking from Washington University in St. Louis, with a minor in Art History. She also studied at the Santa Reparata Printmaking Studio in Florence, Italy, and at the Vermont Studio Center. Her work has been exhibited in solo and two person shows at Elliot Smith Contemporary Art in St. Louis, Fontbonne University, and The Contemporary Art Workshop in Chicago, and she has taught painting and drawing at Webster University.
After moving to Philadelphia in 1999, Elisa drew inspiration from early motherhood, later stepping back to focus on family life. When she returned to her studio, she found freedom in its privacy—space to explore materials, ideas, and her own artistic voice, apart from outside influences. Over the past fifteen years, her continued practice has shaped a distinct process and visual language, and she now looks forward to reengaging in dialogue with the wider art world.
1991
BFA with honors in studio art, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
Concentration: Printmaking | Minor: Art History
1990
Santa Reparata Studio, Florence, Italy
Intaglio printing
1995 – 1999
Adjunct Professor of Painting and Drawing, Webster University, St. Louis, MO
1996
Visiting Professor, Meramec Community College, St. Louis, MO
Visiting Professor, Forest Park Community College, St. Louis, MO
National Society of Social Policy and Practice, Washington, DC
First National Bank, Columbia, MO
St. Louis University High School, St. Louis, MO
Choice in Dying, New York, NY
Jefferson/Keeler Printing Company, St. Louis, MO
Please contact the artist for purchases or commissions, ea@newsengin.com, www.elisaabeloff.com
1999
New Faces, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO
1997
Elisa Abeloff, Contemporary Art Workshop, Chicago, IL
1996
Recent Paintings and Drawings, Forest Park Community College, St. Louis, MO
1993
A Particular Set, Gallery at MAC, St. Louis, MO
2026
NEW NOW IX, InLiquid Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
National Juried Exhibition, First Street Gallery, New York, NY
A Glimpse Elsewhere, The National Apartments, Philadelphia, PA
2019–2022, 2024
Souls Shot Portrait Project (traveling exhibitions), Philadelphia, PA and NJ
1998
Faculty Exhibition, Webster University, St. Louis, MO
1997
Two-Person Exhibition, World Trade Center, St. Louis, MO
Juried Group Show, Quincy Art Center, Quincy, IL
Group Exhibition, Hunt Gallery, St. Louis, MO
1996
Art St. Louis, Art St. Louis, MO Faculty Exhibition, Webster University, St. Louis, MO
1994
Juried Exhibition, Alcazar Gallery, Baltimore, MD
1993
Drawings Coast to Coast, Rockville Arts Place, Rockville, MD
1991
Northern National Juried Exhibition, Nicholet College LRC Gallery, Rhinelander, WI
Juried Show, The BAUhouse, Baltimore, MD
BFA Exhibition, Steinberg Gallery, Washington University in St. Louis, MO
1990
Alumni Exhibition, Baltimore School for the Arts, Baltimore, MD
1999
Elisa Abeloff Turns Ordinary Scenes Into Master Strokes, Jeff Daniel, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (July 11)
1996
Interesting New Work from Familiar Hands, Robert Duffy, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Oct 17)
Column, Richard Byrne, Riverfront Times (Nov)
Drawings by Elisa Abeloff, River Styx Magazine (Oct)
A Silent, Enigmatic Drama, Robert Duffy, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Apr 11)
Review, Brian Smith, Art St. Louis, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring)
1993
MAC the Knife, Suzanne Langlois, Riverfront Times (Nov 10)
RAP’s Drawings a Feast for the Eye, Roberta Morgan, The Rockville Gazette (June 30)
1992
Lofty Ambitions, Jeannette Batz, Riverfront Times (Nov 11)
1991
Paintings at BAUhouse Leave Strong Impression, John Dorsey, The Baltimore Sun (July 17)
1990
Art Alumni Go On to Better—and Better—Things, John Dorsey, The Baltimore Sun (Feb)
