Ellie Krakow

We are pleased to inaugurate our Gallery Two space at 678 Broadway with a solo exhibition by New York-based artist Ellie Krakow.

In this new body of work, Krakow reflects upon the devices of medical intervention, architectures of medical support, and parts of bodies that are the recipients of such intervention. Her glazed ceramic forms reveal her lived experience of bodily fragility, creating objects that – like her, through decades of living with an invisible chronic illness – inhabit the space between flesh and technology.

Krakow’s awareness of bodily interiority, integral to her everyday perception of the world, informs each step in her sculptural process. Building her forms out of clay, she physically handles them with equal attention to the inside and outside, pulling parts on the potter’s wheel, stretching and joining elements, and methodically smoothing surfaces. Krakow conceives of ceramicists' tools as akin to the instruments the doctor or diagnostician uses to examine and alter flesh. The pedestals and frames in this body of work take their cues from hospitals and treatment centers, drawing from the aesthetics of hospital furniture and medical surfaces. The relationship between the artwork and its support reflects an active symbiosis, compelling the viewer to think through the odd and astonishing ways in which bodies are supported and sustained, and the strangeness of surviving at all.

Ellie Krakow earned her MFA from Hunter College and her BA through study at Yale University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions including Below Grand, Goodyear Gallery at Dickinson College, Nurture Art, Spring/Break, Field Projects, Thierry Goldberg, Present Company, Wasserman Projects, Kingston Sculpture Biennial, and the Pula Film Festival. Parallel to her studio practice, Krakow works on text-based and curatorial projects as a way to build dialogue and discourse around themes that matter to her including bodily and environmental loss; mirroring as a potential site of transformation; and displaced or disabled communication. Krakow has participated in residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Yaddo, Abrons Arts Center, and Shandaken: Stormking. She currently teaches sculpture and is the director of Mazmanian Gallery at Framingham State University.