bio
Elizabeth Jones is an expert painter and food systems activist with 10+ years of experience maintaining both an artistic practice and involvement in grassroots food access work. In 2018, they graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art. While in school they worked with various farms and gardens as well as Food Systems Working Group, an organization dedicated to increasing the community’s access to quality nutritious food.
Elizabeth’s focus has shifted towards utilizing art to highlight community members’ experiences, values, and visions of a future in which we are all thriving. Elizabeth is applying their expertise to creating a collection of drawings, paintings, and stories about their community’s efforts to increase food sovereignty, heal psychological trauma, advocate for workers’ rights, regenerate the local microbiome, and work towards implementing a restorative justice system.
artist statement
My body of work was borne of interest in the effects of isolation. This interest evolved into a fascination with healing and living with trauma that acts as a barrier to connection. I utilize a combination of portraiture, surrealism, abstractions, and interviews to explore neglect, addiction, illness, dreams, and (dis)connection.
One of my goals is to embrace the complexity and uniqueness of each subject I explore. The experience of observing someone with curiosity and an open heart— finding out what drives them, where they came from, what they dream about— is so beautiful and teaches so much about accepting another for exactly who they are and where they’re at, not where I imagine them to be or the story I have about what they can become. Taking in the richness of others’ stories gives me an expansiveness I can bring into myself and take back to my family and community.