“Eliza Myrie mines and interrogates the dynamics between likeness, figuration—particularly of Black women—and power as well as the hierarchical structures that have grave influence on the everyday.” – Jessica Hong, Associate Curator of Global Contemporary Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth

“Myrie’s exploration into sculpture, performance, and likeness leads us to consider the physical and mental maintenance, often coupled with moments of futility, of subverting patriarchal systems. Both Awardees bodies of work feel particularly relevant to the current moment in which we live and the futures we endeavor to imagine.“ – Jennifer Carty, Associate Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, The Smart Museum at University of Chicago

Eliza Myrie received her MFA from Northwestern University and was a participant at The Skowhegan School and The Whitney Independent Study Program. Myrie is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a co-founder of The Black Artists Retreat [B.A.R.]. Exhibitions include Arts Club Chicago; Gallery 400; Vox Populi; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Myrie’s work explores site and labor through generational inheritance, gender, and authorship. As a sculptor and printmaker, dimension, volume, and examination of how representation and subjectivity are lost/gained via physical and conceptual processes are central to her work.

Eliza Myrie is the recipient of the 2020 LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Artadia Award.