Mount Sinai Art Fridays
Art Fridays Arts Workshop for Cancer Patients at The Center of Excellence for Cancer Support Services at Mount Sinai
Participants in this workshop will build self portraits exploring and building upon the ancient art of silhouette which started in ancient times with shadow tracing. Using collage and drawing, we will create self portraits which express the feelings and ideas of our medical journeys.
October 23rd, 2026
National Academy of Design Class of 2026
I am thrilled to share that I have been elected by the National Academy of Design as a National Academician in the Class of 2026. Academicians are elected by the current artist and architect members of the Academy in a tradition dating to the Academy’s founding in 1825.
National Academy of Design Class of 2026
Candida Alvarez
Amale Andraos
Kendall Buster
James Casebere
Ellen Driscoll
Emmet Gowin
Gary Hilderbrand
Alyson Shotz
Robert Storr
Leo Villareal
Stephen Vitiello
Dan Wood
Plastique, Opalka Gallery, Russell Sage College, March 17 – April 18, 2026
Oil and Water, 2026, 10’L x 9’W, HDPE Plastic, Photo Etienne Frossard.
Curated by Aurora Robson
Artists: Ellen Driscoll, Twyla Exner, Natalya Khorover, Niki Lederer, Steve McPherson, Anna Mein, Pamela Moulton, Portia Munson, Anne Percoco, Aurora Robson, and Tyrome Tripoli.
Opalka Gallery, Russell Sage College, 140 New Scotland Ave., Albany, NY
“Oil and Water” is a 10’W x 9’D x 30’H sculptural landscape fashioned from high density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic water bottles gathered from the waste stream. Maps of the five leading oil exporter countries to the U.S. —Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Brazil surround a map of the U.S., seemingly tossed in the landscape of molecules of water? Or chemicals? Facing each other inside this landscape are an oil refinery and a reproduction of the 1793 Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the first water-powered cotton spinning mill in America. The mill sits under scaffolding and atop a tower —as if caught in a flash flood. Below it lies a landscape of tents that house climate refugees. A bird perches on the rooftop surveying the scene.
The sculpture is a visual allegory of the arc of energy technology over time: In the 233 years since the Slater Mill was built the U.S. has become dependent on oil and fossil fuels leading to the seemingly irreversible crisis of climate change and an overwhelming glut of plastic, an oil by product.
Bird’s Eye, Catskill Art Space, Jan. 17 – Feb. 28, 2026
Carrier, 2025, 44″ x 60″, ink and collage on paper, Photo Etienne Frossard
Solo exhibition curated by Sally Wright
Friday – Saturday, 11am – 5pm
Sunday, 11am – 3pm
48 Main St, Livingston Manor, NY“Bird’s Eye” includes 10 years of sculptures and drawings which trace our personal relationship to the ongoing crisis of climate change and global warming. Including intricate drawings of translucent ink that highlight the resilience and regenerative power of plants and the fragility of our natural environment and sculptures that construct intimate dystopic landscapes depicting the devastating impact of fossil fuel, the exhibition explores and exposes the impact of human activity on the environment — and the ways we might heal it.
Meltdown: A Changing Climate, Arts Westchester, opens Oct.11 – Jan.11, 2025
Curated by Patricia Miranda with artists Ellen Driscoll, Rachel Olivia Berg, Zaria Forman, Lisa Lee Freeman, Bradley Kern, Koyolzintli, Daniel Miller, Itte Neuhaus, Jaanika Pearna, Theda Sandiford, Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz, D.M.Witman, and Sarah Cameron Sunde.
Wednesday-Sunday 12-5, 31 Mamaroneck Ave. White Plains, NY
“Re-Rooted” in the Leonhardt Galleries
Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 2024 Art/Garden series continues with “Re-Rooted,” an exhibition featuring the drawings of Brooklyn-based artist Ellen Driscoll, who takes her inspiration from the resilience and regenerative power of plants. The exhibition runs from April 20 through May 27. Driscoll’s work is in major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Art. Her awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bunting Institute, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, the LEF Foundation, the Rhode Island Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman, and a Fine Arts Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Leonhardt Galleries are open seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH2C_e1y_Pk
Mend: New Drawings Planthouse Sept. 9-Oct.14, 2023
Untitled 57, 2023 44″ W x 60 “H, ink and collage on paper, Photo by Etienne Frossard
Mend-to make (something broken, worn, torn, or otherwise damaged) whole or sound by repairing, to set right, make better, to progress toward recovery.
The drawings in the larger room of the gallery all focus on plants used in a process known as phytoremediation. Each of these plants is able to absorb and transform ecological degradation in water and earth. Sunflower, mustard, vittata, pennycress, poplar, phragmite, indiangrass, and willow are variously used to remediate nitrogen, phosphorus, radiation, lead, cadmium, trichlorethene, and more. The drawings explore the contemporary alchemy of this important transformative biological process in a time of ongoing environmental crisis.
The drawings in the second room of the gallery are self portraits which have been cut into weft, which is then woven into a warp cut into a landscape. Each landscape image depicts a scene of global warming: a melting glacier, dead trees, and more. The structural matrix of the woven paper connotes the inextricable connection of each individual to the larger fate of our one warming planet.
Sunflower: Radioactive waste, Zinc, Copper, Cadmium. Poplar: Tricloroethylene, Chlorinated Solvents. Mustard: Zinc, Cadmium, Lead, Nickel, Willow: Arsenic, Cadmium, Zinc, Copper, Lead, Nickel. Indiangrass: Agrochemical residues. Phragmite: Nitrogen and Phosphorus in water. Pennycress: Cadmium, Zinc. Water Lettuce: Copper, Iron, Mercury. Vittata: Cadmium, Arsenic
Murmuration, Ruffin Gallery, University of Virginia, August 25-Oct 6, 2023
Spirit familiar, 2023
15″ x 15″
ink on paperCurated by Elizabeth Schoyer
Artists: Golnar Adili, Michael Bogin, Erin Crowe, Ellen Driscoll, Ellen Gallup, Rachel Lane, Kera McKenzie,Andrew Mausert-Mooney, Sarah Morrison, Kristen Nyce, Danielle Riede, Martha Saunders, Sandy Williams IV
sojourner
A small woolen hooded jacket hangs on a branch. Maps of all the continents of the world fall from both sleeves and hang on the opposite ends of two branches.
A bird overlooks the maps below.The sculpture presents the viewer with a freeze frame of an absent figure temporarily in stasis during a larger transit. The one to one scale of the child size jacket is juxtaposed with the great distances of the entire world, seen in miniature in the continental maps cut out of felt. The sculpture holds these micro and macro scale juxtapositions in suspension—held in stasis in between departure and arrival. The bird is at rest, but connotes the greater atmospheric spaces within which birds fly.
Spirit Familiar
A bird at rest on a horizon line, is mirrored below the line, as if reflected in water. The map of Charlottesville, Virginia forms the space of reflection below the line. Starry points of light encircle both birds, as if transmitting pulses of energy that communicate across the line.
The 36th Parallel, Track 16 Gallery, LA Aug. 12-Sept. 9, 2023
Self Portrait 21, 2023
16″ W x 12″H
digital print, ink on paperCuratorial Statement “The 36th Parallel” explores the cross sections of conscious and unconscious landscapes informed by visual navigations guided by historic, domestic and economic compasses. The 36th parallel north in particular has been defined as is a circle of latitude that is 36 degrees north of the Earth’s equatorial plane that crosses Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America and the Atlantic Ocean. In the ancient Mediterranean world, its role for navigation and geography was similar to that played by the Equator today. Featuring select works by seven interdisciplinary practices artists, “The 36th Parallel” opens the conversation with various entry points of our social and cultural geography through material, image and assemblages. Curated by Los Angeles artist Beth Davila Waldman, “The 36th Parallel” is a global platform of geographic and cultural connective tissues that speaks to the root of her own artistic practice as well as those of fellow participating artists from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Brooklyn to Berlin, India to Iran. Waldman has found inspiration for this exhibition in exploring liminal realms through terrains of ground and water, industry and economy, sanctuary and prosperity. Fellow Wellesley College graduate of Waldman’s Cathy Simon recently published book Occupation: Boundary, Art, Architecture and Culture at the Water which defines idea the of liminal realms as “transitional places, combinations of people and goods, events and structures, habitats of interaction between ideas, things and territories; sites for exchange and shipping, making and taking.” This Book along side those of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost as well as Thomas Cole’s Series “The Course of Empire” have been of service in developing the concepts of this exhibition. As Waldman walks the grounds of the Hudson Valley during her monthly visits to her Kingston studio as well as frequent family visits to Charlottesville where she has frequently toured Jefferson’s Monticello as well as the downtown alley where Heather Heyer was run over and killed during the Unite the Right protest in 2017, the charged role of landscape throughout time continued to ignite for her. In this exhibit, the current atmosphere of the Anthropocene is considered on macro and micro levels, across our great oceans as well as within a hands reach.
Participating Artists
Ellen Driscoll, New York
Uma Rani Iyli, San Francisco / Los Angeles
Liz Miller Kovacs, Berlin
Katie Murken, Oakland
Alex Nichols, San Francisco
Beth Davila Waldman, Los Angeles / New York
Minoosh Zomorodinia, San Francisco
Exhibition at Central Michigan University
“Field Notes”
Ken Buhler and Ellen DriscollJanuary 18-February 11, 2023
University Art Gallery
Central Michigan University
Exhibition at Kingston Gallery
“Splinter”
An Exhibition of Self Portraits by Ellen DriscollNov. 4–Nov. 27
Opening November 4, 5–8 pmKingston Gallery
450 Harrison Ave #43
Boston, MA 02118
kingstongallery.com
Writers & Books Ellen Driscoll Artist Talk
October 7 @ EST 6:30 pm – 7:15 pm
Artist in Residence | Gallery Talk with Ellen Driscoll
Writers and Books
Rochester, New York
www.wab.orgBehind the Curtain: View Eyechart, then join us for artist Ellen Driscoll’s talk on her creative process.
Admission is free. Gift donations are appreciated.
The gallery talk will also be streamed via Zoom.
Eyechart Exhibition at Writers and Books
Sept 9-November 5, 2022
Writers and Books
Rochester, New York
www.wab.orgSept. 9: Opening event 5-7
Oct.7: Conversation–Ellen Driscoll 6:30-7:15
Nov. 4: Poetry Reading—Kathy Engel 6:30-7:15
Shapeshift
July 30-September 4
Fridman Gallery
Beacon, NY
Whether Weather
August 13-September 25
CREATE,
Catskill NY
The Garden of Friends Exhibition at the Leiber Collection
“Eyechart” banners
Collaboration Ellen Driscoll and Kathy Engel
May 28-December 31, 2022
Intersection Provincetown
Kentler International Drawing Space Benefit
100 WORKS ON PAPER VIRTUAL BENEFIT
October 16 & 17You can support our vital organization while growing your art collection or giving the gift of art to a loved one! Here’s how it works
PREVIEW ARTWORKS: Benefit Artworks
Gowanus Open Studios
Please join us 12-6 October 16 and 17
232 Third Street for a curated exhibition as part of Gowanus Open Studios
VIVA launch: Virtual Visiting Artists
This is an exciting new initiative that I am part of, with a dynamic group of artists.
https://www.vivavirtualartists.org/
Wake
Curated by Michele L’Heureux opens May 6 at Dorsky Gallery
Wake examines the power of water to sustain life and to destroy it and also looks at what is left in its wake. The paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations in this exhibition explore the sheer force of water in the form of waves, storms, and energy, as well as the aftermath of water once it retreats: parched earth, invasive plants, dwindling animal populations, human illness. The visual dialogue between these six artists invites reflection and discussion on the impact of global climate change
Wake examines the power of water to sustain life and to destroy it and also looks at what is left in its wake. The paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations in this exhibition explore the sheer force of water in the form of waves, storms, and energy, as well as the aftermath of water once it retreats: parched earth, invasive plants, dwindling animal populations, human illness. The visual dialogue between these six artists invites reflection and discussion on the impact of global climate change
Outstanding Educator Award, International Sculpture Center
Thicket
Thicket
May 5— June 23
Opening
Reception Friday, May 5th 6—9pm
Wed-Fri 1-5pm
Sat-Sun 11am- 4 pm
or by appointment
508-843-2184
Rafius Fane GalleryThe Rafius Fane Gallery is pleased to present “Thicket”, a solo exhibition of
recent sculptures and drawings by Ellen Driscoll. In her sculptures, Driscoll
combines cloth that typically covers the body as clothing or blanket with larger
abstractions of maps and diagrams, or the wilds of tangled forest branches . The
scale of the singular and intimate body is set against the much larger scale of cities,
forests, wind currents and continents.In her drawings, exquisite plants and birds inhabit dystopian wildernesses–freshly
minted worlds emerging from post-industrial landscapes. The artist removes the
ink with water to reveal the silhouettes of both plants and birds. These ghost
images within the drawings are palimpsests of what survives and adapts in spite of
environmental adversity.In her sculptures, the single body is situated within a much larger sense of drift,
migration, and realignment. In her drawings, the plants and birds are caught in
webs of rapidly evolving ecological shift where what is indoors and what is
outdoors are in visual flux.In both media, the artist shifts our perception and destabilizes our vantage point,
creating openings for new perspectives to emerge.
Telescopic Tea Table
The Olana Partnership and Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7 FM are pleased to present Groundswell, a new iteration of their award winning event. From 2-6, visitors will explore contemporary works sited throughout the grounds of Frederic Church’s historic Hudson Valley estate, Olana. “Telescopic Tea Table” created with Daniela Gomez, is a mirrored table upon whose surface float countries where Church painted during his international travels, and mirrored tea pots which directly mirror sculpted ornamentation on the historic house on the hill above. During the day, over 100 cups of mint tea were served to visitors as a gesture of hospitality–at the tea table.
Washed Up
In this two person exhibition with Ellen Driscoll and Robert Oxnam, we spent several days creating a matrix that would make a single work out of our two disparate bodies of work on a 25 foot wall at the Brooklyn Zen Center.