Emily Weiskopf

Opening Reception Sunday, June 23rd, 3-5pm

This series of works, primarily made up of Palm stems and fronds were excavated from forest fires, ice storms and deforestation around the country. Some of these incidents occurred just feet from my own home. These works are markers, fragile emblems, souvenirs of places that exist in conflict with their past and in defiance of their future.
I find inspiration in the excavation and repurposing of discarded, fragmented man-made and natural elements that have gone through the process of history and humanization as a potential of presence, not only physical but also spiritual. I reconstruct and often incorporate these found elements with resin and clay to magnify a place of reflection, preservation and history. By repurposing and physically reshaping the fragments I discover novelty in front of the realm of distortion and disorder, rebuilding as a way of freedom and connection, and resolution to contemplate the relationship between self, the land and the world.
These resourced materials envision new modes of transformation and regeneration in relation to how we consider the earth’s resources and our impact on them. I acknowledge that in life things go wrong, but also want to speak to a confidence that much can be retrieved and rebuilt.
The works here aim to reframe new relationships between us and the earth in ways we think, feel, see and partake in ideas of waste, notions of value, d-i-y, fragility and the earth which has always been our greatest resource. I believe that the notion of care cannot be separated from the notion of harmony with Nature. I consider architecture, formal elements, folk arts, and utilizing familiar historical craft techniques as a visual language in which to further explore critical environmental and social quandaries of our time. I aim to build consciousness and healing while emphasizing social impact alongside environmental concerns that reimagine the politics and ethics of care while drawing out a balance between artistic intervention and the raw material. -Weiskopf

Emily Weiskopf (b. Syracuse, New York) creates a multifaceted body of work that shifts across mediums that include sculpture, ceramics, drawing, and photography. She received a BFA from the Hartford Art School(CT) and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art(PA) /Rome, Italy. Weiskopf’s work has been featured in Artnet, Gallerist NY, DNAinfo, the Contemporist, the Brooklyn Rail and exhibited with M.David&Co(NY); David Hall Fine Art (MA); Shin Gallery(NY); Tiger Strikes Astroid; among others including Deanne Evans Projects Flatfile (2022). In 2013, the NYC D.O.T commissioned Weiskopf’s first large scale public installation, Unparallel Way. Weiskopf was nominated for the Rome Prize in 2011, awarded the Robert Rauschenberg Award 2021, Walter Hodes Memorial Award, and numerous fellowships and residencies including the Artist Pension Trust(2013), Vermont Studio Center (2011/2021), the Wassiac Project (2012) the Atlantic Center for the Arts (2023), ECOCA Keyhole Workspace (2024), Jentel (WY) 2024. She was among the 2021 ReClaim Award winners in Cologne, Germany, selected for Chico Photography Review (2022) and is currently developing a permanent public artwork with the City of Austin, Texas due to debut in 2024.

She has held Lecturing positions at Fashion Institute of Technology (NY), Monseratt College of Art(MA) and Texas State University(TX). In 2014 she was in an 18-wheeler car accident that left her with life-altering injuries and permanent mobility and cognitive constrictions that paused her practice until the end of 2019, shifting the direction of her work exponentially. Weiskopf currently lives and works in the Northeast.