The work of Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor finds majesty in the abject and monumentality in the discarded. Remnants of bedclothes, blankets, pillows, couch cushions and knit Afghans gathered and donated from thrift stores and yard sales are cut, re-sewn, wrapped, roped, tied and built into objects that seem to be simultaneously shrouded yet exposed, patched back together but disintegrating, the comfortable rendered uncomfortable.
Existing somewhere on a spectrum between elegy and absurdity, the work examines a setting where cautionary tales, private anxieties and natural history museum dioramas mash-up…and attempts to close the gap between tenderness and the grotesque. Through a feminist lens, O’Connor’s sculptures appear as something like a “Where The Wild Things Are” from a feminist imagination. In ways similar to the work of Orly Cogan, O’Connor remakes found domestic objects, in this case repurposing fabrics from the domestic environment into altogether new objects.
Elisabeth Higgins-O’Connor (b.1963, Los Angeles) took her MFA from UC-Davis in 2005. She has exhibited at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, CA, the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art, the Torrance Art Museum, the De Saissett Museum and the Kohler Company Space in Kohler, Wisconsin. Her work has been reviewed in numerous publications including Artforum, LA Weekly, Artweek, Artillery, and Beautiful Decay. She lives and works in Sacramento, California.