When I was three years old, a fox raided the chicken coop on my parent’s farm. The site of the massacre was strewn with evidence of its swift violence. One particular bird had only been partially consumed – almost perfectly bisected in such a way that it’s entire reproductive system was revealed. I could see a series of stages beginning with a yolk and ending with a perfect, shelled egg within that body – fixed at the moment of death in pristine order. This visual experience represented a turning point in my relationship to the world. I now see it as my first clear instantiation that life, and nature underneath it, is a baroque, mysterious thing that hangs precariously on a framework of elegant reason. - Elizabeth Neel The synthesis of paint and idea is freshly at work in the paintings of Elizabeth Neel. The paint becomes decay, violence, nature; instead of describing, it simply IS. The oneness is appealing. Equally appealing is the content-- exploration into our own violence, contamination of nature, decay and death. Deep, layered meaning, and the unselfconscious uniting of language and idea. - pleiady.blogspot.com Select Essay or Articles Elizabeth Neel interview with Sheryl Nonneburg Smithsonian Magazine: Back to the Figure Vogue: Primary Sources Interview Magazine Elizabeth Neel Select Project Make No Bones The Garden Party