Meet Elizabeth
Bay Area artist and filmmaker Elizabeth Sher is Professor Emeritus of Art at the CCA in San Francisco and Oakland where she taught Painting and Media Arts. Starting in fine art prints and oil painting, Sher moved into 16 mm film and mixed media works. Currently working in video, artist books and digitally mixed media on canvas, paper and metal, she passes freely between static and moving images, paint and pixels, traditional and new media. She mixes these with a strong basis of formal discourse and a quirky sense of popular culture blended with insightful honesty and humor.
“My creative output is an attempt to examine aspects of perception: what is seen, the interaction of sight and memory, the construction of narrative and how this process informs our understanding of the world.” - Sher
Her artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Public collections include The San Francisco Museum of Art, The Fine Arts Museums of California, the San Jose Museums of Art, The Oakland Museum of Art, Carnegie Mellon University, U.S. Embassy Collection and private and corporate collections. Sher is currently a member of Mercury 20 Gallery in Oakland, CA.
“As a filmmaker, my framing Is essential to the composition of each shot and sequence – but more generally, my entire creative practice could be summed up as an ongoing process of framing/editing. I consider the implicit cultural and historical frames beyond the physical borders and how we receive our sensory impressions.” - Sher
Sher’s films have earned grants, won national festival awards, aired on PBS and cable networks from San Francisco to New York, from Australia to Portugal and Israel. She is the winner of the 2014 Fleishhacker Small Film Grant and the 2012 Roy Dean Grant for Film. Her 2014 documentary PENNY, won First Place Audience Award at the Mill Valley Film Festival, CA and Intendence Film Festival, Denver, CO; First Place at Depth of Field International Film Festival, and a Certificate of Merit at Rochester International Film and Video Festival. The film was an Official Selection at Julien Dubuque International Film Festival, IA; Port Townsend Film Festival, WA; Athens International Film Festival, OH; Big Muddy Film Festival, MI; and OUTrageous Film Festival, Santa Barbara, CA. Other festivals include , Berlin Short Film Festival, Germany, Edinburgh Film Festival, Scotland, San Francisco International Film Festival, NY Independent Film Festival, Black Film Festival, Dallas, TX, and Baltimore Women’s Film Festival, MD.
“Humor, feminist consciousness, and a love of nature and the everyday are reflected in Sher’s work. Nature and technology vie for the upper hand. Combining her technological skill with the quickness, fluidity, and ease of movement in hand drawn line and paint, she brings together elemental life and our complex modern world.” - Cheryl Meeker
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Filmography
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