About
Visual artist Elizabeth Stone is drawn to the ways transformation and ambiguity are deeply rooted within the photographic medium. Her work engages with both the literal and conceptual notions of the negative and positive. She explores subjects through iterative investigations that emphasize themes of sameness and difference.
In 2019, Stone’s practice significantly shifted with the start of a mindfulness meditation practice. This change led to the development of more dimensional installations and artworks that extended beyond the confines of the wall.
Stone’s recent works have taken a community-oriented approach, fostering interactions with both human and non-human communities. Stone embraces slow, meticulous processes that integrate hand and mind, often recontextualizing and reinterpreting her materials, as she continues to push and pull at the edge of what defines and how we see the photograph.
Stone has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries across the United States. Her work is held in collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Center of Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona, Candela Collection, Richmond, VA, Cassilhaus, Chapel Hill, NC, Nevada Museum of Art Special Collections Library, Center or Art + Environment, Reno, NV, and Archive 192, New York City, NY. Her work has been featured in numerous publications and online blogs, including Orion Magazine, Strange Fire Collective, BETA Developments in Photography, Lenscratch, The Whitefish Review, Diffusion Annual and The Curious Photo Blog.
Stone lives and works in rural Montana where the sky is indeed big and the grass tall.
Awards and Honors
Stone has been awarded multiple artist in residence fellowships including Cassilhaus, Ucross Foundation, Jentel Artist Foundation, Willapa Bay AIR, Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, Virginia Center of Creative Arts and the National Park Service. These fellowships provide her with concentrated focus for creating original work while engaging in stimulating intellectual dialog with other artists.
Stone was awarded the Arthur Griffin award in 2024, a Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 winner in 2022 and in 2023 was awarded the inaugural Critical Mass Archive 192 award. Stone was second place winner in The National Best Contemporary Photography exhibition by the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in 2022. She was awarded the Montana Fellowship in 2019 from the LEAW Foundation which included an artist residency at the Virginia Center of Creative Art. She was also a finalist for the Clarence John Laughlin award in 2017, nominated for the Baum Award for Emerging American Photographer in 2016 and was awarded the top Portfolio Review Prize at PhotoNOLA 2013, her first review, which resulted in a solo show at the New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery in 2014. She worked as an artist in schools from two grants from the Montana Arts Council in 2011 and received a Strategic Investment grant from the Montana Arts Council in 2020.
Community
With the I Remember Projects, Stone recognized the opportunity to bring people together and invited various communities in both her home state of Montana and Central North Carolina to participate in the creation of her artworks. All ages and walks of life sat down around tables, shared stories and sewed photographic negatives together one stitch at a time.
Stone works each month with individuals with early-stage memory loss and their care partners at the Missoula Art Museum in Missoula, Montana for the Art in the Moment program. This program, in partnership with the Alzheimer's Association, is designed to foster connection and companionship through art.
As a monthly guest editor for Lenscratch, Stone interviews a photography educator, highlighting their insights, strategies, and excellence in inspiring students of all ages. Lenscratch, the online daily photography journal founded by Aline Smithson in 2007, celebrates a different contemporary photographer each day and has become a significant platform in the photography community.
A Commitment to Sustainability
For the last seven years, Stone has dramatically reduced waste and consumption of new materials. By approaching art-making as a circular system, she is committed to developing new ways to transform and use existing materials in her studio. This approach demonstrates a conscious effort to incorporate sustainability into her artistic practice.
One minute video created for Medium Photo Festival 2022
