By Sheila Elias
Miami artist, Sheila Elias discusses how she uses Apple technology to realize her artistic vision.
Though I have experimented with painting, photography, sculpture, and
mixed media, I have seen a transformation in my art through the digital
age. Departures magazine has called my series, “iPainting the Future”.
My work is about the layers of life and art history, seeking in it a connection between art aesthetics and social consciousness. American sensibilities have influenced my life, the hues of my country found in the colors of my art. I like to bring an awareness of new directions and individual inventiveness. The evolution of technology has always paralleled my work throughout its development. From the original copy machine to today’s iPad, the influence of electronics permeates my process.
Through life experience, I incorporate visual, emotional, and psychological impressions and feed them into my art. My work, whether it is photography, sculpture, or paintings, has always been a visual interpretation of my internal landscape, which is significantly
influenced by external landscapes.
Therefore, this collection of work is an indirect reflection of my colorful, turbulent home, Miami. Miami, where multi-cultural history and the future clash on a daily basis, is a luminous kaleidoscope of raw, sincere emotions and harsh realities; urban tension mixed with profound beauty, compassion and optimism. Evidence of this interpretation can be found in the canvases of “iPaint on my iPad”.
This is all exhibited through my mid-career publication, Somewhere- Anywhere, in conjunction with Nova Southeastern University. It traces the evolution of my art and vision through abstraction and figuration, object and performance, pop and expressionism. With a foreword by distinguished, New York artist-critic Robert C. Morgan, Somewhere-Anywhere features the history of my art as interpreted by noted Los Angeles critic, curator, and historian Peter Frank, who has followed my work for almost three decades. He said, “she is one of the few artists that paint about the
optimism instead of the pessimism of life.”
“Sheila Elias is an artist’s artist — a painter, printmaker, sculptor,
photographer,and champion of mixed media, whose pint-sized
physical presence belies the Promethean energy she pours into
and lavishes upon every single composition.”
– Denise Most Gerson, Lowe Art Museum
Latest works include my digital work on the iPad. The ability to create contemporary, abstract shapes from my iPad, opened opportunities for me. Apple retail stores around the country and world have invited me to conduct workshops inspiring others to use their Apple products to another height in creativity including Hong Kong (as well as Hong Kong Art Basel), China, Chicago, Santa Monica, California (twice); and Lincoln Center, New York, as well as Florida.
Besides the Apple stores, I have exhibited these works in Chicago and New York Art Galleries and in California at the California Heritage Museum and was interviewed by Art Loft for PBS.
Sheila Elias is a well-known Florida-based artist whose works have been shown at Louvre, Institute des Decoratifs, Paris; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach; Boca Raton Museum of Art; Norton Museum of Art; Masur Museum of Art; Riverside Art Museum; Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL; New York Public Library; Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami; The Brooklyn Museum; Kunsan Contemporary Museum, Korea; American Academy of Fine Arts and Letters in NY; Janco-Dada Museum, Ein Hod, Israel; Institute for Contemporary Arts, Korea; New England Center for Contemporary Art and in galleries and private collections throughout the world. She is continuously working on new ideas.
http://www.sheilaelias.com
305.892.9198
Studio visits available by appointment
