The Print Center Honorary Council Award of Excellence Winner
Eileen Neff (born 1945, Philadelphia, PA, lives Philadelphia) holds a BA in literature from Temple University, a BFA in painting from the University of the Arts and an MFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, all Philadelphia. Solo exhibitions include Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, The Rosenbach and Bridgette Mayer Gallery, all Philadelphia; and Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland. Neff’s work has been shown at Artists Space, New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Carnegie Mellon Art Gallery, Pittsburgh; and MoMA PS1, Queens, NY. Neff has received a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Memorial Fellowship, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship and Leeway Foundation Artist Grant. She has artist residencies at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, Clermont, KY; La Napoule Art Foundation, France; Monte Azul Center for the Arts, Mt. Chirripó, Costa Rica: MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH: and Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia. She has written for Artforum International and continues to write independently.
Statement from the Artist:
Drawing on both historic and contemporary concepts of picturing the natural and constructed world, my work also includes an investigation of studio practice itself as a generative source. These works were instigated by a heightened studio time during the summer of 2020, when I reconsidered ongoing (postponed) projects as well as engaged the seasonal gifts that have often marked my practice. The images with tape are cropped versions of my constructed-to-scale proofs for future (seamless) works, and now part of a series I call Work from Work. Also represented here are works made during the time of the summer solstice, when the setting sun on the western horizon appears on the eastern wall of my studio. I’ve been taking advantage of this natural visitor for years, always changing what I set in its path. Among other things, this year I placed a cut-out photograph of a leaf on top of a photograph of an empty shelf, and then let the sun have its way.