Christine Elfman

Christine Elfman is an artist who makes images that relate stillness with change, clarity with ambiguity, and intention with chance. She uses photographic and other experimental processes in which the image is understood to have agency, with subject matter acting as its own medium, refusing to be fixed or resolved. Elfman's work has been shown widely, including solo exhibitions at Penumbra Foundation in New York, Houston Center for Photography, TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image and University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco. She is represented by the EUQINOM Gallery in San Francisco. Her photographs have appeared in publications such as BOMB, 1000words, the San Francisco Chronicle, photograph, and Der Greif. She has been awarded a Light Work Grant in Photography and residencies at the Penumbra Foundation, Cape Cod National Seashore, and Saltonstall Foundation. Elfman currently teaches at Ithaca College and previously taught at San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, Bowdoin College, International Center of Photography, and as an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Wells College. She received her B.F.A. from Cornell University in 2004 and an M.F.A. from California College of the Arts in 2012.

Academic Research/Specialty Areas

  • Collaborative practice
  • Drawing
  • Interdisciplinary art
  • Photography
  • Visual representation
  • Ephemeral Art
  • History of Photography

Related Links

Classes (Selected)

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

  • Cape Cod National Seashore Artist Residency, Provincetown, MA (2022)
  • Light Work Grant in Photography, Syracuse, NY (2020)
  • Penumbra Foundation Workspace Residency, New York City, NY (2020)
  • Philadelphia Photo Arts Center Contemporary Photography Exhibition Award (2017)
  • Artist Residency, Contance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, Ithaca, NY (2009)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

  • dust to dust, solo exhibition at Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX (2023)
  • All solid shapes dissolve in light, solo exhibition at EUQINOM Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2022)
  • Hold Fast, solo exhibition at Penumbra Project Space, Penumbra Foundation, New York, NY (2021)

Selected Work

  • A bright white gallery with a cluster of purple and blue paintings on the center of the back wall, a pedestal to the left, and two small images on the right.

    All solid shapes dissolve in light (2022), installation view, EUQINOM Gallery, San Francisco, CA. image / provided

  • Two framed prints of abstract shapes in shades of blue, mounted on a white wall.

    Cave (2016-23), faded blue ternate dye on paper (unfixed anthotype diptych), 20" x 32". image / provided

  • Several framed paintings and prints of varying colors and sizes, hung on the wall of an art gallery.

    Even Amaranth (2016), installation view, Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA. image / provided

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