Ellen Lesperance
Exhibitions, CV, Press


Born 1971, Minneapolis, MN
Lives and works in Portland, OR


SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2020
Weatherspoon Art Museum, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC (forthcoming)
Velvet Fist, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD 

2019
Flowers Wrapped in Newsprint, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR

2018
Lily of the Arc Lights, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, NY

2017
W.I.T.C.H. 1985, Portland Art Museum, OR
The Subjects, Crumpacker Library, Portland Art Museum, OR

2016
Run Now Women, XO, Project Room, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris, France

2015
We Were Singing, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR

2014
You & I Are Earth, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR

2013
It’s Never Over, Ambach & Rice, Los Angeles, CA

2011
The Strong, Star-Bright Companions, Ambach & Rice, Seattle, WA

2010
Ellen Lesperance, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA

2005
Off the Grid, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, NY
Ellen Lesperance & Jeanine Oleson, Samson Projects, Boston, MA
This is Our World, Savage Art Resources, Portland, OR

2002
Over the River and Through the Woods, PS122 Gallery, New York, NY


SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2020
Staying With the Trouble, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts in Boston, MA (forthcoming)

2019
Less is a Bore, ICA, Boston, MA
Feminist Histories: Artists After 2000, Museum of Art Sao Paolo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Dress Codes: Ellen Lesperance and Diane Simpson, The Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Last Night I Wore a Costume, LX Gallery, New York, NY
To Make Wrong/Right/Now, Honolulu Biennial, Honolulu, HI

2018
Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, and Resistance, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK traveled to De La Warr Pavilion, England, 2019
Nashashibi / Skaer, Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, England
New Materialism, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden
Half of the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Women. Now., Austrian Cultural Forum, New York, NY

2017
Trigger: Gender As A Tool And A Weapon, New Museum, New York, NY
Cynthia Daignault, Dan Fischer, Ellen Lesperance, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, NY
Her Eyes Are Like Doves Beside Streams Of Water, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR
I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR Occupancies, Boston University Galleries, Boston, MA
Thread Lines, (traveling from the Drawing Center, New York, NY) Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville, KY

2016
Ellen Lesperance and Helen Mirra, Traversing, Armory Arts Center, Pasadena, CA
Who Cares?, Valerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris, France
Exploring Reality, Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR
Crafting the Future, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR

2015
Book of Scores, Disjecta, Portland, OR
Take Back Vermont, Zieher, Smith & Horton, New York, NY
Common Thread, Mixed Greens, New York, NY
Harlem Postcards, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

2014
Sincerely, Ambach & Rice, Los Angeles, CA
Thread Lines, The Drawing Center, New York, NY
Almost Something, Not Quite Nothing, Ambach & Rice Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
PORTLAND 2014 Biennial, curated by Amanda Hunt, Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Portland, OR

2013
American Identities: A New Look, Modern Life, The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, OR Biennaleonline, curated by Jens Hoffmann, www.artplus.com

2012
Hang Up, Josh Lilley Gallery, London, England
Dear Pippa Bacca, Frieze Frame, New York, NY
Contemporary Watercolor, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
Falling Through Space, Drawing by the Line, University of Buffalo Center for the Arts, Buffalo, NY

2011
Body Gesture, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR
will be home..., Ambach & Rice Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2010 -12
People’s Biennial, curated by Harrell Fletcher and Jens Hoffmann, Traveling: PICA, Portland, OR; Dahl Arts Center, Rapid City, SD; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ; Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford, PA

2010
Performance Forever, Façade/Fasad Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

2008
The Gathering, Drawing Room, Portland, ME

2007
Mother, May I?, Campbell Soady Gallery, New York, NY
Art as Intervention, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH

2006-7
Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale, Traveling: Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO; Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME

2006
Redykeulous, curated by Nicole Eisenman and A.L. Stein, Participant Inc., New York, NY Bearings: The Female Figure, curated by Allen Frame, PS122 Gallery, New York, NY

2005
Something is Somewhere, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, NY
Human Nature, Pump House Gallery, London, UK
Off the Coast: A Landscape Chronology, Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME
Art as Intervention, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH

2004
RE:SOURCE Performances, Art in General, New York, NY
RE:SOURCE, curated by Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy, Art in General, New York, NY

2003
The Changing Same, Triple Candie, New York, NY
La Superette, Deitch Projects, NYC; Participant Inc., Brooklyn, NY
Off the Top, curated by Sid Sachs, Bill Maynes Gallery, New York, NY
Mark: Contemporary Drawings, Gallery 16, San Francisco, CA
Portland Biennial, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME

2002
Inside Out, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL

2001
Fully Human, The Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY
Domestic Culture: The Home in Visual Culture, curated by Mark Bessire, Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, ME

2000
Deterritorialization of Process, curated by Michael Joo, Artists Space, New York, NY
In Its Own Way, curated by Joan Linder, Makor Gallery, New York, NY
7,840,800 CU FT, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, Queens, NY

1999
Lesperance’s Hand-Knit Self Portrait, Printed Matter, Inc., New York, NY

1996
Project Room, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA


AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES

2018
Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, New York, NY

2017
Chiaro Award, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA

2016
Macdowell Colony Fellowship, Peterborough, NH

2015
Robert Rauschenberg “Artist-as-Activist” Grant Art Matters Foundation Grant

2014
Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant Djerassi Artists Residency, Bear Gulch, CA
Individual Artist Fellowship, Oregon Arts Commission, Salem, OR

2012
Hallie Ford Foundation Fellow, The Ford Family Foundation, Roseburg, OR

2010
Betty Bowen Award, Seattle, WA
MacDowell Colony Fellowship, Peterborough, NH

2005
LEF Foundation Grant, New England Division, Boston, MA

2003
Associate Artist, “First Contact: Photographers Explore the Florida Landscape,” The Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL

2001
Faculty Development Grant, Maine College of Art, Portland, ME
Course Work, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, ME

2000
Project Honorarium, Artists Space, New York, NY

1999
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Grant, Morristown, NJ

1998
Artist-in-Residence, Studios Midwest, Galesburg, IL

1996
Artist-in-Residence, Pratt Fine Arts Center, Seattle, WA


PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
The Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA
Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, CA
The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA Microsoft Collection, Seattle, WA
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA


EDUCATION

1999
Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, MFA, New Brunswick, NJ
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME

1995
BFA University of Washington, Seattle, WA, US