Elizabeth Colomba was born in France and raised in Épinay-sur-Seine, from parents of Martinican descent. She lives and works in New York City. Elizabeth received a degree in applied art from the Estienne School of Art, Paris and also studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

Colomba's paintings have been exhibited at the California African American Museum, Los Angeles; the Balthus Grand Chalet, Switzerland; the International Biennial of Contemporary Art (BIAC), Martinique; Volta, New York; the Fondazione Biagiotti Progetto Arte, Florence and the inaugural triennial at Columbia University. The Moon is my only luxury was the artist's first solo exhibition and catalogue in New York which opened in the spring 2016. Her work is included in the permanent collections of The Studio Museum in Harlem and Princeton University.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Being of Martinique descent but born and raised in France has shaped and influenced my perception of myself and identity. This dual background has pushed me to explore the totality of social experience and fuse my two worlds (French and Caribbean) in my work. While acknowledging the past, I wish to reshape the narratives and bend an association of ideas so that a black individual in a period setting is no longer synonymous with subservience and, by extension, does not instill fear or mistrust. The subject becomes the center of her own story and hastens it forward.

Creating pieces that reference Old Masters’ techniques while incorporating Western themes implies a precontemporary creation, an egalitarian existence in a story from which the black body is almost always absent. When a work of art depicts a figure (mythical, biblical, allegorical) the narrative is identified with the help of pictorial codes. Eros would be recognized by his arrows, Psyche is associated with the butterfly, and so forth. Thus, skin color no longer dictates the story of the protagonist but transcends it. The viewer no longer ponders status but rather representation, iconography.

Reclaiming history and anchoring the spirit of the African diaspora by redefining its place is a difficult and ambitious task that requires patience and visual reappropriation. It could be attained by resetting one’s mind and establishing a different visual landscape devoid of servile narrative. By generating an environment for my subjects to inhabit a space that honors their presence and place in and through culture and time allows me to redefine not only how black people have been conditioned to exist, but also how black people have been conditioned to reflect upon themselves.

www.elizabeth-colomba.com