About

BIOGRAPHY

Liz Wade holds an MFA from the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore, MD), and a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, CA). Her paintings, prints, drawings and collages have been exhibited widely, most recently at the C. Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore. She has been the recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the Creative Baltimore Fund, and was the 2007 Maryland Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. She resides in Baltimore with her husband, artist Nicholas Cairns, and their two children.

RESUME

Open resume as PDF 

Solo Exhibitions

 2010   “Bêtes Sauvages,” C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2008   “Works On Paper,” CCBC Gallery, Baltimore, MD.

2008   “Elizabeth Wade, New Work”, Hudson D. Walker Gallery, Provincetown, MA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2013   Havertown Invitational, Havertown Music and Arts, Havertown, PA

2011   “IMPACT“, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD

2011   “Back to the Future“, Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD

2010   “Summer ’10“, C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, MD

2010   “Moulin Rouge”, Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD

2010   “Athena’s Daughters 2010” Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD

2010   “HIVE”, Area 405, Baltimore, MD

2009   “That’s What She Said”, Benton House, Chicago, IL

2008   “Seven Deadly Sins”, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD

2008   “Preliminaries and Process”, Cade Gallery, Arnold, MD

2008   “Summer 2008”, Tao Water Gallery, Provincetown, MA

2008   “my _________ other”, Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD

2007   “New Art Examined III”, (juried) Arlington Art Center, Arlington, VA

2007   Artist-in-Residence Open Studios, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center

2007   “Ethereal Heist”, MFA Thesis III, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD

2006   “What Are They Building in There?” MICA, Hoffberger School of Painting, Baltimore, MD

2006   “Works on Paper III” (juried) Circle Gallery, Annapolis, MD

2005   “New Work: Hoffberger School of Painting”, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD

2005   “Arizona Artists”, Orme School, Mayer, AZ

2001   “Art Angels”, (juried) SomArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA

Professional Activities/ Awards

2008   Creative Baltimore Fund Individual Artist Grant

2007- 2010   Part-time Faculty:

  • Maryland Institute College of Art
  • Anne Arundel Community College
  • Community College of Baltimore County

2007   Provincetown Award: Maryland Institute Fellowship, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center

2007   Featured Artist on “Artworks”, Maryland Public Television, Airdate 4/11/07

2006-2007   Assistant to Grace Hartigan, Director, Hoffberger School of Painting

Education

2007            MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art, Hoffberger School of Painting

1997             BFA, California Institute of the Arts, Performing Arts Design, Technology, and Management

 

STATEMENT

Liz Wade’s large, figurative works on canvas use bold yet delicate color schemes, a blunt drawing style, and flat, patterned shapes and planes to depict simplified animal forms and human figures frozen in narrative tableaux. Her subjects are often fools or deities, with exaggerated facial and bodily features, who engage in semi-heroic activities with carnal ferocity. Mad laughter emanates from these paintings, but it is tempered by seriousness and searching— a desire, as Wade’s mentor Grace Hartigan put it, “to discover the unknown in the self.”