bio
Elizabeth Jones is a painter and food systems activist with over a decade’s experience maintaining both an artistic practice and involvement in grassroots food access work. While in Santa Cruz 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.
The focus of Elizabeth’s artistic practice has shifted towards utilizing art to highlight community members’ experiences, values, and visions of a future in which we are all thriving. In addition to expanding their knowledge of land stewardship and community health, 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.