As an interdisciplinary artist, I explore the interconnection of elemental materials in places that are undergoing change. Inspired by land use, localized materials, food systems, and cultural knowledge, I use embodied and experimental practices in the landscape to uncover stories between ecological cycles and liminal space. My sculptural objects, which I call “earth tools,” are designed and used to connect to living organisms and to assist in exposing invisible worlds. My practice primarily manifests as durational performances, participatory encounters and sensory installations, but also through planting seed, harvesting, and distilling plants for scents.
Turning to earth-based systems, I integrate cycles both seen and unseen, using the senses to learn from living organisms and non-living substances, like plants, water, and minerals. Through various mediums and methods, I aim to calibrate and restore our connection to the effects of time, as it is an indicator in ecosystems and our bodies.
Alexis Elton is an artist working with site-as-material to form connections with plants, soil, and other living beings. Her work is situated where art and agrarian systems meet with aims to create ephemeral sensory encounters. As a farmer and adobe builder, her artwork is informed by the field; likewise, fieldwork is Alexis’ creative practice.
From 2008-2015, Alexis co-operated Jubilee Farm in Chimayo, a rural village in Northern New Mexico. There she maintained a studio in the oldest plaza in the U.S., a historic building made from adobe bricks. Committed to exploring place, her work continues to take form through land reclamation, as native seed saving initiatives, farm and art education programs, and food production. Merging the everyday tasks of land-base living with a studio art sensibility, she creates opportunities to experience the natural world through physical labor, through slowness, and through the senses.
Alexis earned a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has shown her work internationally and nationally including Kochi Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India; 5 x 5, Washington, DC; and Kingston Sculpture Biennale, Kingston, NY. She has received awards from Joan Mitchell Foundation, Santa Fe Art Institute, and NYFA, among others. Alexis grew up in New York's Hudson Valley, NY where she now lives.
