About the artist
Eli Kauffman’s work explores their relationship to care, repair, and rest, through life sized compositions that reflect moments with loved ones. Kauffman grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is currently based out of Providence, Rhode Island. They graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA, and during their degree they received the Maharam Fellowship, and exhibited works at the RISD Museum. Kauffman debuted their first international solo exhibition in London with Artistellar Gallery. They have also shown work in St. Tropez, France, and in the United States, in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles. Kauffman attended residency with Moosey Gallery, in Norwich, England, reflecting on, and further developing their monochromatic palettes. They were awarded the Make Art Award, from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, resulting in paintings that are now a part of the Providence Public Library’s permanent collection.
About the work
Kauffman’s work reflects the physicality of intimate moments, through life sized paintings. Their work mythologizes everyday experiences of labor and respite. Fixing a sink or getting a tattoo become heightened opportunities for unexpected connection. Kauffman’s palette oscillates between grayscale or monochrome, to local color and natural skin tones. These shifting color palettes pull their practice between classical genre painting, and a contemporary, transcendent, strain of loose figuration. Working from photo references, memory, and drawings, Kauffman creates believable, though sometimes improbable scenes.
Though their interest in dramatic storytelling stems from television and film, Kauffman’s paintings are primarily pulled from first-hand experiences. Within the paintings, the world serves as a mirror, a set on which to explore new versions of ourselves, and fill unexpected roles. Images drawn from play, intimacy, domesticity, and community shift between documentation and dream, honoring both how things are, and how they feel. Tension between autobiographical depiction and sensationalized storytelling reveals the ways we create ourselves and each other, again and again. Kauffman is interested in the ways that their paintings can reflect milestones that repeatedly prove to be important in the collective consciousness.
Grants and Residencies
Project Fund for the Arts Grant 2025
Awarded by the Department of Art, Culture & Tourism in Rhode Island for an exhibition at Machine with Magnets gallery
Moosey Residency 2024
Artist in residence at Moosey Gallery in Norwich, UK
RISCA Make Art Grant 2024
Awarded funding by the state of Rhode Island to support an installation at the Providence Public Library
Maharam STEAM Fellowship 2020
Partnered with Wasatch Community Gardens in Salt Lake City to create site specific murals
Exhibitions
Machines with Magnets Gallery 2025
“Otherworld”
Duet exhibition curated with J Rowen O’Dwyer
Pawtucket, RI
Gallery 263 2025
“Contemporary Queer: A Loveletter”
Group exhibition curated by Lucy Yan & Laura Kathrein
Boston, MA
Providence Public Library 2024
“Wheel of Fortune”
Site specific installation
Providence, RI
Small Format 2024
“Submerged”
Group exhibition curated by Eli Kauffman
Providence, RI
Lost Acorn Gallery 2024
“Just For You”
Solo show
Salt Lake City, UT
Small Format 2023-24
“Held”
Solo show curated by Tameka Eastman-Coburn
Providence, RI
MRKT Gallery 2023-24
“Calendar 2024”
Group show curated by Nora Soliman
San Francisco, CA
Soft Times Gallery 2023
“2nd annual Small Works exhibition”
Group show curated by Brent Hayden
San Francisco, CA
Soft Times Gallery 2023
“Summer Intermission”
Online group show curated by Brent Hayden
Artsy, Foundations online art fair
Good Mother Gallery 2023
“Swelter”
Group show curated by Vanessa Indies
Los Angeles, CA
Artistellar Gallery 2023
“Thinking of You”
Solo show curated by Adele Smejkal
London, England
Lorin Gallery 2023
“California Dreaming”
Group show curated by Joe Chira and Dimitri Lorin
Los Angeles, CA
Bloom Galerie 2022
“Water Is Not For Sale”
Group show curated by Cassandra Bowes
St. Tropez, France
Soft Times Gallery 2022
“Crimson Tide”
Group show curated by Brent Hayden
San Francisco, CA
Finch Lane Gallery 2022
“Love is The Message”
Solo show curated by Claire Taylor
Salt Lake City, UT
Gelman Gallery, RISD Museum 2022
“Residual Hauntings”
Group show curated by Emma Florance & Sarah Goldman
Providence, RI
Memorial Hall Gallery, RISD 2022
“Magic Hour”
Group show
Providence, RI
Gelman Gallery, RISD Museum 2022
“Of Soiled Bodies”
Group show curated by Corina Dorrego & Veronica Bello
Providence, RI
Clubhouse on South Temple 2021
“The Portal is Now”
Collaborative, interactive art event
Salt Lake City, UT
Gelman Gallery, RISD Museum 2020
“Re-Position”
Group show curated by Namrata Dhore, Jisu Yang, & Cherry Yang
Providence, RI