Meet Elizabeth Albright | Narrative Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Elizabeth Albright and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Elizabeth, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
My first child was premature had to spend his first week of life in the NICU. When we were released from the hospital, my son was so small and fragile that I was afraid to put him into daycare. So I started searching for a way to make money while staying at home with him. I was mostly searching for freelance editing work, as that was something I had experience in, but I wasn’t having much success.

At the same time I had started to paint as a way to mediate postpartum depression. I was posting images of my paintings to Facebook, just to show off my work. One day a friend commented on one of my posts asking if my paintings were for sale. I had never thought to sell them because I didn’t believe I was good enough to make money selling my art. When I sold that first piece I realized that selling my art was a way that I could make money and have a flexible schedule–all on my terms.

Being self employed allowed me to care for my children. It was an amazing bonus that I could also make a career out of something that I loved.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am really interested in storytelling and how it shapes civilization. Religion, mythology, visual art, and so on, all create who we are as a people. I have noticed that all types of storytelling from all cultures has a common thread–all cultures are interested in our relationships with the natural world. I am particularly interested in how we relate to animals and I explore those themes in my art. I have three different series I am working on now. Each series has come one after the other as my art career has grown.

The first series is Classical Art Parody, where I recreate famous paintings, replacing the heads of the figures with animals. Lots of people do this sort parody art, but my paintings are different, because I choose animals that have a symbolic connection to the original figures in the painting. For example, my popular parody of American Gothic, “American Goth-Chick,” replaces the figures in the original painting with chickens. But not just any chickens (and not just so I could make a funny pun). The chickens I use are barred rock chickens. These were the chickens kept during the Great Depression, because they were hearty scavengers, and therefore cost very little to keep. And “American Gothic” is a sort of love letter to the hearty hard working people that lived during the Great Depression. Just like the hearty hard working chickens that gave them eggs.

My Classical Art Parody series was my flagship series and really helped my career take off and formed my point of view. It is really easy to enter into a conversation with people about art when they find it familiar already. Creating parodies of paintings that are already beloved really opened up my audience to my art.

My second series is a more lighthearted look at Pop Culture figures and their relationships with animals. I take famous images of people like Freddie Mercury, Bob Ross, David Bowie, and so on, and transform them into their animal counterparts. Bob Ross, for example, was known for rescuing squirrels, so I transform him into his squirrel Pea-pod in my painting “Happy Little Squirrel.”

I started making the pop culture series to reach a broader audience, people who aren’t necessarily interested in classic art.

My third series is my most recent series. This is a series rooted in Magical Realism and informed by religion, mythology, and fable. It is a departure from the first two in that it is more of an exploration of my own mind and all the images comes straight from my imagination but they are all still animal focused.

These images are often more emotional and sometimes dark. This series started as a way to cope with my emotions during the Pandemic.

My Magical Realism series means a lot to me but it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to transition from my more lighthearted pieces to these deeper pieces. But I have found that since I have the first two series to draw in the viewer I have an opening to introduce them to these more serious pieces. It took a long time for me to have the confidence to create this sort of art and I have been really surprised at how many people have responded positively to my most personal pieces.

I often think of abandoning my older series and focusing on more personal art. But, really, each of these three series reflects a part of my personality, and they work so well in concert together, especially with the overarching animal theme threaded through all three. I’ve found that if I separate them into groups during in person shows, each series in its own little clump, that I have something to talk about with almost anyone who stops and looks. And sometimes people are open to exploring one of the series they might now have necessarily been drawn to at first.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I am really into museums. Any museum really. Also, Zoos and Aquariums, as long as I know the animals are well treated. Then to a park for people watching and strolling. Maybe buy a yummy treat from a street vendor. Watch the buskers. Lay in the sun on a grassy hill. My idea of a good time is basically a school field trip.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
When I first started out as an artist I was sort of lost. I had no point of view. As an oil painter I was leaning hard into that classical style one expects out of an oil painter. Landscapes and conventional paintings of animals, mostly. While I enjoy that sort of art, it was really lacking spark for me.

What I really wanted to do was tell stories. Weird stories. I wanted to create images that made people stop and think. But I hadn’t found a space where that was allowed. Until I found ZaPow! Gallery.

ZaPow! was an illustration and pop art gallery in Asheville, NC, owned by Lauren Word Watterson. When I first entered the gallery something clicked in me. I knew these were my people. I applied to be an artist in the gallery 2 times before I was accepted. Every time I was rejected, I would try to think of a way I could refine my point of view even more, to prove that I could hang with the other amazing artists in the gallery.

When I was finally accepted and became an artist at ZaPow! I started to build relationships with other artists in the gallery and being a part of that really helped my art career take off. Before long I was working in the gallery and getting to know Lauren. Lauren’s influence and the space she built really gave me the confidence I needed to build my personal style and grow my art business. Sadly, ZaPow! was forced to close during the pandemic. Lauren and I are still friends and I still greatly value her input, not only as an artist, but also as a small business owner. She is so resilient and has the ability to reinvent herself time and time again and roll with the punches life throws at her. Lauren now runs Hoof and Horn Art Farm in Barnardsville.

Website: ElizabethAlbrightArt.com

Instagram: @ealbrightart

Facebook: @ealbrightart

Other: TikTok: @ealbrightart

Image Credits
Elizabeth Albright