- email ebuckholtz@massart.edu
- phone (617) 879-7475
-
education
- MFA, New Genres, Stanford University
- MFA, Film, Video, Performance, California College of the Arts
- BFA, Aspects of Light and Motion, The Ohio State University
Courses: SIM Major Studio ,Mining Meaning, Interrelated Media Practice, Experimental Ensembles, Sound Performance, Sculptural Lighting
Elaine Buckholtz (she/her) is a Light Installation Artist. Her recent work utilizes video and light in relation to sculptural forms, digital prints, and pre-existing sites in architecture and nature under the cover of darkness. Buckholtz has a longstanding background in visual and lighting design for the stage, having worked with the likes of Terry Riley, Merce Cunningham, and Meredith Monk. A significant aspect of her visual work has involved direct experiences and immersive environments for the viewer to engage in – the materials of her work have included light, vision, and perception in relation to objects as large as cathedrals and as small as a pair of glasses.
In 2021, her work “A Telling of the Light” was exhibited at the Durham Lumiere Festival, in homage to lives lost to the COvid pandemic in England. She has collaborated with Future Farmers at Freshkill; has exhibited at The Minnesota Street Project and Gallery 308 in San Francisco CA; The International House of Japan in Tokyo, Japan; and The Lumiere Festival in London, England. She received a Fulbright Specialist Fellowship in 2018 and the Japan Friendship Commission Fellowship for 2017. Her work is held in the collections of numerous private collectors on the East and West coasts of the US and abroad. Buckholtz received two consecutive MFA’s from California College of the Arts and Stanford University from 2002 to 2006 with the support of The Jacob K. Javits Fellowship.
Elaine’s knowledge base includes:
- Light Installation and Optics
- Lighting Design
- Experiential Scores
- Contemporary, Sound and Conceptual Art
- Philosophy
- Language, Poetry, Text and Image
- Natural History
- Questioning form and translating mediums
- Mediated images
- Unusual occurrences in nature and strange experiments
- Culinary development
- Walking
Recent Exhibitions
2024
– Dream Club Lab – Light and Video Installation Collaboration with Ian Winters – San Jose, CA
– Evolution of the Unseen – Light Installation with Optical Devices – A Street Gallery – Boston, MA
– Trading Senses – Installation Performance with Future Farmers – Meta – Seattle WA
2023
– Evolution of the Unseen – Solo Light Installation with Optical Devices – Osaka, Japan
– Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula– Opera Lighting Design – Taub Theater – San Francisco, CA
– Domestic Light – Light Installation Collaboration with Ian Winters – San Francisco, CA
2022
– Swept Again – Video Installation – Art Market San Francisco, Festival Pavilion San Francisco
– Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula – Opera Lighting Design – Calderwood Studio at WGBH Boston
2021
– A Telling of Light – Video, Light, and Sound Installation Commission – Lumiere Festival, Durham, England
– Bright Ideas Festival – Durham, England
– Of Furrows and Lands in Harps – Future Farmers Performative Installation Direction – Fishkill, New York
2020
– Unsung, Forest Light and Sound Installation, Galway 2020, Galway, Ireland
– Freely Falling Objects, (Reflections on Meaning from the Flusser Archives), Building Video and Sound Installation, Sussex University, Sussex, England
Awards
2018
Fulbright Specialist Fellowship – U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational
and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and World Learning
2017
Japan Friendship Commission Fellowship – National Endowment For The Arts, USA
2015
Rainin Foundation Grant – Imagining Central Market Street, San Francisco, CA
2013
Mass Art Faculty Grant – Wandering Nighthouse Project
