Eli Brown lives and works in Boston. An interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, drawing, and community organizing, Eli explores gender through time and intergenerational dynamics. His practice revolves around learning trans-ness as a lineage, and as an evolutionary phenomenon that is not always human. Eli's research is both experiential and rooted in queer ecologies, which bridges queer theory and environmental science, and challenges the problematic foundations of evolutionary biology and speciesism which continue to inform our bodily experiences. They are especially interested in asking what the future of human evolution could look like if we imagined reproduction as a queer, ecological strategy.
Recent work has been featured at Flux Factory, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Tailgate Projects in Tampa, FL., and Creative Time Summit X.
Education
2018 MFA, School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston, MA
2008 BA, Visual Art, Smith College, Northampton, MA
2007 San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
Awards
2022 St Botolph Club Emerging Artist Award
2022 Ecotopian Toolkit Grant, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
2022 Residency, Franconia Sculpture Park
2021 Collective Futures Fund, Tufts + The Andy Warhol Foundation
2021 Now + There Public Art Accelerator
2020 Assets for Artists Capacity-Building Grant, MASS MoCA
2020 Residency, Studios at MASS MoCA
2019 Fellowship for Utopian Practice, Culture Push
2018 Collaborate Boston Grant, The Boston Foundation
2017 TIE Artist Grant, Tufts Institute of the Environment, Tufts University
2017 Cathryn Griffith Award in Best Design and Concept, First Place in SMFA Graphic Arts
2004 National Scholastic Gold Award in Writing, Personal Essay/Memoir
Solo Exhibitions + Public Artwork
2022 Beam Me Down, Lopresti Park, Boston, MA
2021 Bright Holes, Broad Scars, Tailgate Projects, Tampa, FL
2020 How to Make Slime, New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA
2019 Museum of Queer Ecologies, Distillery Gallery, Boston, MA
Selected Group Shows + Performances
2022 Ecotopian Toolkit, Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia, PA (upcoming)
2021 New Faculty: Connections, Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN
2021 Din Din, Flux Factory, Queens, NY
2020 Out of Place, Fountain Street Gallery, Boston, MA
2019 The deCordova Biennial, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA (catalogue)
2019 Call and Response, Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA
2018 Celebrate People's History, Stamps Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2018 Ourselves, University of Rhode Island, Providence, RI
2018 Spaceus: Mapping Worlds, Roslindale Substation, Boston, MA
2018 T(HERE) MFA Thesis Exhibition, Tufts University, Medford, MA
2017 Graphic Arts Prize Winners, The Museum of Fine Arts Huntington Library, Boston, MA
2017 Betwixt/Between, Piano Craft Gallery, Boston, MA
2016 Graphic Content, Healthy Teen Network’s 37th Annual National Conference, Las Vegas, NV
2016 trans/draw, Gallery 263, Cambridge, MA
2011 Small Works for Big Change, Art Benefit for the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Jack Studios, New York, NY
2011 One Of A Kind: Unique Artists Books, Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge, MA (catalogue)
2010 Antigone: A Genderqueered Act of Resistance, Brecht Forum, and House of Yes, New York, NY
2010 My Prosthetic and I, St. John The Divine, New York, NY
2009 Room for Cream: A Live Lesbian Soap Opera, La Mama, New York, NY
Collaborations + Community Projects
2022 trans species database, Ecotopian Toolkit, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
2020 Trans Family Archives, Flux Factory and Parallel Performance Space, New York, NY (ongoing)
2018 Boston Resilience Collaborative, Fenway Health Center, BAGLY, and Simmons College, Boston, MA
2016 Poster Design, 7th Annual Social Justice in Education Conference, Teacher Activist Group, Boston, MA
2015 A Person of Their Own, Advocates for Youth, 1 in 3 Campaign, Washington, D.C.
2013 Youth Day Collaborative Visioning Workshop, CASFS, University of California Santa Cruz, CA
2013 Rooted in Community National Youth Leadership Conference, Community Services, Los Angeles, CA
Presentations
2022 trans species database, Ecotopian Toolkit Project, Public Field Walk, Philadelphia, PA
2019 Caring About Care, Panel Discussion, Creative Time Summit X, New York, NY
2019 Artist Talk + Interactive Workshop, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
2018 Artist Q + A, n(arture), Tufts University, Medford, MA
Selected Texts + Publications
2022 Artists and the Practice of Agriculture, Routledge’s Critical Food Studies (upcoming)
2021 Culture-Culture (upcoming)
2022 Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, Mycologies Issue
2021 CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art and Action, Issue 22: Boundless, Fordham University
2020 Celebrate People’s History; edited by Josh Macphee, Feminist Press
2014 Transplants: Sowing the Seed of Gender in the Garden, internationally distributed zine
2013 Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf: A Queer Sex Education Comic Book; Soft Skull Press
2011 One of A Kind: Unique Artists Books; Lame Duck Press
2004 This Cowboy, The Best Teen Writing of 2004; Scholastic Press
Selected Press
2021 Sallwen, Alli, Interview in Boston Art Review, Rooted issue
2020 Lopez Casell, Dessane, “Vivid Posters Chart a “People’s History” of the Struggle for Social Justice,”
2020 Boer, Sam, “Maybe I’ll Do Something With It”: Comics as Alternative Sex Education, Studies in Comics,
Volume 11, Number 1
2019 "Eli Brown: Museum of Queer Ecologies at Distillery Gallery,” Art New England
2019 Mcquaid, Cate, “The Ticket: What’s Happening In The Local Arts Scene,” The Boston Globe
2019 Reynolds, Pamela, “At The Distillery Gallery, Artist Eli Brown Explores Biology And Gender In
‘Museum Of Queer Ecologies’,” WBUR, The ARTery
2019 Reynolds, Pamela, “At deCordova, New England Artists Take A Biennial Bow,” WBUR, The ARTery
2019 Carlock, Marty, “deCordova New England Biennial 2019,” Sculpture Magazine
2019 Malone, Callan, “Where Are You Now? 10 Summer Exhibitions Worth The Trip,” CULTURED
2019 Klehm, Nance, “Spontaneous Vegetation,” lumpenradio, 105.5 FM WLPN LP, Chicago, IL
2018 Clark, Edward, “Check out Eli Brown’s Artwork,” Boston Voyager
2016 Adams, Samuel, “trans/draw at Gallery 263: Gender Outside the Lines,” Big, Red, and Shiny, Feature
2013 Camper, Cathy, “Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf: A Sex Education Comic Book” Lambda Literary
Collections
Printed Matter, New York, New York
Little Berlin, Philadelphia, PA
School of the Museum of Fine Arts W. Van Alan Clark, Jr. Library, Boston, MA
Barnard College Zine Library, New York, NY
Hampshire College Zine Library, Amherst, MA
Certifications
2013 Certificate in Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA
2011 Certificate in Urban Permaculture Design, New York Permaculture Exchange, New York, NY