Elizabeth Wolfe

Elizabeth Wolf is best known for her oil painting portraiture, often done with a non-traditional use of color. Her loose style and bright hues easily glide the viewer’s eye across her intimate pieces. In 2019, she began a series of live paintings of local musicians, which she performed at the musicians’ concerts. During that same time, she worked alongside the University of Louisville’s violence prevention and advocacy organization, the PEACC Center. Here, she completed the “Beautiful People” portrait series, which showcases domestic violence survivors and supporters of the cause. Tying together language and art, each portrait of this series is paired with a piece of writing created by those depicted. Themes of Wolf’s work often reflect current times and social issues. In this piece, she focuses attention on historical figure Harriet Tubman, aiming to inspire students with the face of a fearless visionary who represents a turning point in American history regarding a social injustice that many still contend with today. The geometric symbol behind Tubman’s head is known as Metatron’s Cube and can be seen throughout nature as an interconnection between all living things. With this shape, Wolf endeavors to connect all people by supporting the idea that if one link is suffering, then so is the whole. This piece blends her love of geometry with her unique and loose style of painting in a way that she has not shown before in any of her other work.