Eileen Neff

ARTIST STATEMENT

Most of my work includes the landscape as a primary element of the photographic constructions I create. As much as the landscape, I love engaging the conventions of seeing and picturing, and question how the world might be re-presented. The works move freely between the apparent ordinariness of a recognizable image and sheer abstraction, sometimes appearing closer to painting’s pictorial strategies than what we expect from photography. Having formally studied painting before photography, and poetry before painting, I consider the ideas and boundaries between disciplines to be more fluid than not. With that said, I’d like my photographs to quicken one’s sense of attention and presence, the way sculpture can.

LEFT: "Self Portrait," RIGHT: "Living in Rooms."

"These works were inspired by what’s become a yearly, seasonal event around the summer solstice, something I’ve recorded in other recent work. The significance of this ritualized moment, marked by the sun’s appearance in the studio, has increased over time; while my work has always been instigated by my attachment to the natural world, my own physical limitations as well as more universal considerations and concerns – everyone’s relationship to the imperiled, natural world – together these thoughts have made my desire to find Nature where and how I can increasingly poignant."

LEFT: "Here and There,"  RIGHT: "Shelf Life."

"It was when I was anticipating the summer solstice of 2023 that I thought to photograph a tree and grow it in the studio to its original size, a section of the trunk, that is, disappearing its top and its roots at the ceiling and the floor of my studio, to let the sun have its way with it when it arrived. But that summer had its own ideas, and I soon recognized how under the effects of northern fires and other climate changes, the number of impressive sunsets on my eastern wall was more limited than it had been in the past. And it wasn’t long before I was no longer waiting for anything to come, but could more deeply experience the tree’s presence in the studio, and soon enough I thought shelves were in order, reinforcing its interior condition and encouraging the work to shift and change as the solstice sun approached then retreated, while the tree inside remained."

LEFT: "The Third Bird,"  RIGHT: "A Certain Slant."

"The story of the appearance of birds in my work is much longer. I’ve been a birdwatcher (or twitcher) for many years, and recently I learned about The Third Bird, whose origins are located in the tales of Pliny the Elder, the Roman author of Naturalis Historia. I became aware of this old and ongoing history when I read a review of a book called In Search of The Third Bird in The Brooklyn Rail. My own experience and fascination with these magical creatures and what I learned about questions of attention and presence associated with The Third Bird combined to encourage a deep engagement with bird shadows in many of my most recent works."

PUBLICATIONS

Art Spiel, Contemporary Art and Culture, 17 June 2024, by Etty Yaniv.
Eileen Neff: The Bigger World in Categories

Toho Journal, Volume 2, Issue 2 (January 2021)
Catamaran Literary Reader, Issue 28 (Spring 2020)
The Philadelphia Inquirer (May 2019)
Title Magazine, (April, 2017)
La Napoule Art Foundation, Interview (May, 2015)
Title Magazine (May, 2015)

The Artblog (Podcast, Interview), 2015 (PDF)
Modern Painters, 2012 (PDF)
Artforum, 2009 (PDF)
Circa, 2009 (PDF)
Art in America, 2009 (PDF)
Artnet, 2007 (PDF)
Artforum, 2002 (PDF)
Art in America, 2002 (PDF)
New York Times, 2001 (PDF)

CV

Eileen's recent solo exhibitions include the Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, and Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City. In 2007, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia exhibited a 15-year retrospective of her work, which traveled to The Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin in 2009. Also in 2009, there was a 10-year retrospective at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, North Carolina. Other individual installations include the Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia; the Carnegie Mellon Art Gallery, Pittsburgh; Artists Space and MOMA PS1, New York.

Eileen is the recipient of many awards, including a John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Photography, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts Grant, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grant, and the Leeway Foundation Grant. She's been awarded residencies at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Kentucky, the MacDowell Art Colony in New Hampshire, and La Napoule Art Foundation in France. From 1989 to 2002, she wrote reviews for Artforum International, and she continues to write independently. She's taught art students at the University of the Arts from 1980- 2015. She was also a Resident Critic in the MFA Program of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, from 2004 – 2024. In 2025, She's been a professor at Tyler School of Art, working with MFA Photography students.

EDUCATION

MFA, Painting, Tyler School of Art

BFA, Painting, University of the Arts (formerly Philadelphia College of Art)

BA, English Literature, Temple University

Visit eileenneff.com to learn more about Eileen's career.