I became a full-time studio artist after working as an art director and illustrator for many years. This shift toward open exploration was accompanied by a commitment to the practice of Buddhist meditation. Intertwining these two disciplines has defined both my life and work. My daily practice is to embrace uncertainty rather than see it as a problem to be overcome. 

Over the past several years, I’ve developed two parallel processes: sewn textiles and painted paper collage. At first, I thought of these two ways of working as inherently separate, but these days I move fluidly between them. Most notably, my paper collages have informed a series of small textile constructions I call ‘Sewn Collages.’ They employ hand stitching and collage-like layering and have a natural, almost ‘found’ quality. 

I also make large, pieced and appliqued constructions which have recently developed a distinctive sculptural physicality. These pieces are assembled with gathered fabric and quilted with large, coarse hand stitching that makes the piece’s construction feel almost participatory. Creases, puckering, stitching, and softness are not concealed but become active compositional elements. The result is the beginning of a new body of work that occupies an engaging space between painting, quilt making, and relief sculpture without feeling indebted to any one tradition.

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Elizabeth Brandt earned a BFA in Graphic Communications from the Center (now College) for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan and worked in advertising and illustration. In 2010, she became a full-time studio artist creating abstract sewn and collaged work.  She has exhibited in Germany, Portugal, South Korea, Canada and throughout the United States and was recently featured in the book Cloth: 100 Artists by Lena Corwin. She lives near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband. 


Image above: Akimbo, detail, 84" x 84"