In a significant move for the art world, the Seattle Art Museum has recently acquired Elizabeth Malaska’s painting, ‘The Doorway’ (2023). This remarkable artwork is currently featured in Malaska’s solo exhibition, ‘All Be Your Mirror’, which opened to the public on November 17, 2023, and is slated to run until June 16, 2024.
Elizabeth Malaska, known for her visual explorations, utilizes her art to highlight the correlation between our belongings, surroundings, and our consciousness. ‘The Doorway’ encapsulates these ideas, portraying light filtering into a room, casting ethereal shadows of her central figure. The scene also includes an obscured mirror, a wicker chair, a child’s crib, a tabby cat, and a collection of art supplies scattered on the floor. The unique amalgamation of textures and patterns in her art pieces – from intricate wood grains and textiles to the smeared, gestural brush strokes – further underscores Malaska’s knack for creating environments from disparate, individually crafted fragments assembled over time.
Malaska’s large-scale tableaux offer a commentary on Western art’s legacies and narratives, particularly focusing on the power dynamics that frequently relegate women to passive, objectified roles. Pulling influence from traditional painting, mythology, nature, literature, and modern advertising, she weaves a thread of connection between humanity, spirituality, society, and the natural realm.
Elizabeth Malaska, born in 1978 in Portland, OR, is a BFA graduate from California College of the Arts and holds an MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art. She is widely recognized for her achievements, including being a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, a recipient of a Painter’s and Sculptor’s Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and the Hallie Ford Fellowship from The Ford Family Foundation. In 2022, she was honored with the Betty Bowen award, culminating in an exhibit of her work at the Seattle Art Museum. Malaska’s work forms part of permanent collections at the Portland Art Museum, the Schneider Museum of Art, and the Hallie Ford Museum and has been featured in prestigious publications including Ms. Magazine, Art in America, Artforum, Artillery Magazine, and ArtMaze. The artist continues to live and create in Portland, OR.
