New Exhibition: Battlegrounds by Elizabeth Flood

HARTFORD - Real Art Ways presents Battlegrounds, the first solo exhibition by Elizabeth Flood. Through her ongoing practice of painting outdoors in the elements, Flood surveys complex layers of extraction, violence, and expression within the American landscape. The artworks in the exhibition were made at Civil War battlefields in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and Chancellorsville, Virginia, and at the US Capitol. These works commune with and bear witness to the land: they look at past scars to grieve, to learn, to forecast future impact, and to keep watch over a country and land in crisis. Now on view in our galleries through June 12, 2022. Gallery hours are Wed to Fri 4-9pm and Sat & Sun 2-9pm. Admission is free of charge.

Battlegrounds is built around a body of work made over the last year and a half, comprising six paintings and eighteen drawings. Flood recalls, “This body of work began on July 4, 2020, when I witnessed crowds of armed alt-right militias rallying at Gettysburg National Military Park. Disturbed by the perpetuation of violent nationalism at a site which already has absorbed so much death, I've been concerned that the country is barreling right back to 1863. By setting up to make a drawing in the landscape, I also keep an eye on a wounded place. Working at these sites has taught me about the battles, as well as the politics, histories, and motives of fellow visitors. These landscapes have so much to teach and warn us about, if we look closely."

Two drawings in the exhibition pull our attention to Washington DC. In the context of the other sites represented in this exhibition, Flood shows us that the US Capitol takes on the inheritances of the Civil War. “I made these two drawings on January 3 and 4, 2021, intuiting the violence on the horizon. With the subsequent Capitol insurrection on January 6, I understood my earlier and longstanding inclination to stay vigilant and keep watch as an artist.”

Elizabeth Flood was born on Long Island and grew up in Stafford, Virginia. She studied History, Religion, and Studio Art at the University of Virginia where she earned her BA in 2014. Flood attended Boston University for graduate school where she earned her MFA in Painting in 2019. She attended the Mount Gretna School of Art in 2014-2015 and taught painting there during the summer of 2020 while she was on faculty at Colgate University (2019-2021). In 2019, Flood was a participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and was an artist-in-residence at the Studios at MASS MoCA. She is currently a 2021-2022 fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA where she will have a solo exhibition in March. Her work is currently on view at Exeter Gallery in Baltimore in a two person exhibition with Bradley Milligan and has been exhibited in several group exhibitions throughout the northeast. Flood is the recipient of several grants and awards including the Real Art Award, the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Graduate Fellowship, and the John Walker Alumni Award at Boston University.