Elizabeth DaCosta Ahern Abstract Expressionist Color Field Oil Painting Woman Artist, 1980

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Elizabeth DaCosta Ahern (1938-2020)
"Untitled Blue". 1980. Oil on Paper. Hand signed, dated in pencil lower right
Image: 9.75" x … Read more Elizabeth DaCosta Ahern (1938-2020)
"Untitled Blue". 1980. Oil on Paper. Hand signed, dated in pencil lower right
Image: 9.75" x 12.75". Framed: 20" x 17".

American Postwar & Contemporary woman artist.
A highly celebrated painter, printmaker, and art instructor, Elizabeth Ahern seeks to capture the essence of nature through her use of color and light. She creates an abstracted memory of landscape and spirit of place through her unique technique of "soak staining." Resting her canvases on the ground, she pours layer upon layer of water-based paint until the brilliant colors soak and saturate her untreated canvases. The effect is delicate and unforgettable.
“Painting for me is as necessary as breathing; as much an instinct as a delight. Images come from lembrança, or memories of daily experiences from nature, poetry, music, culture and life.
I want to experience the lembrança of color, light and space of the experience.”
She has received many grants and awards, including the Massachusetts Artist Foundation Grant in painting, and a Kinnicutt Travel Grant. In 2010, invited by the U.S. Ambassador to Portugal to be a Visiting Artist, she traveled to the country and lectured at the University of Coimbra and the University of Porto. In 2006 she was invited to participate in the American Artists Abroad Program, traveling to Angola, where she taught a workshop at the Rangel Art School, met with many Angolan artists in a cultural exchange of ideas and methods, as well as having an exhibition of her paintings. Both programs were in association with related Art in Embassies exhibitions. Elizabeth DaCosta Ahern has participated extensively in the United States Department of State’s Art in
Embassy program. Through this program Ahern has exhibited her work in Kiev, Ukraine, Luanda, Angola, and Manama, Bahrain and with other prominent American Artists such as Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Dale Chihuly, Sam Gilliam and Altoon Sultan. Ahern has taught at the DeCordova Museum School, Worcester Art Museum, and Lesley University and has offered workshops in New Mexico and Greece. She exhibits her paintings in several galleries and has work placed in many corporate and private collections. A graduate of Boston University, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, she also studied in a Master Class with abstract expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler in Santa Fe, New Mexico. DaCosta Ahern has lectured on her work at the the University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, University of Porto, Oporto, Portugal, and the Rangel Art School, Luanda, Angola. As a faculty member, she taught painting at Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, the DeCordova Art Museum, Lincoln, MA, the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA and the Island Center for the Arts, Skopelos, Greece as well as Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, New Mexico.
Her paintings are exhibited in galleries and are in the collections of the Princess Noura Bint Abdulrahman University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Federal Reserve Bank, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, American Board of Surgery, DeCordova Museum, the Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Hancock Insurance, Prudential Insurance, IDG Ventures Management and many other corporate and private collections. See less