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Join us for an evening with Philadelphia-based artist Eileen Neff, presented in conjunction with At Liberty. In Through That Which Is Seen, Neff traces the evolution of an ongoing photographic project framed by the expansive conversation surrounding natural habitat dioramas. Her research extends to the collections of Charles Willson Peale’s natural history museum, founded in Philadelphia more than two centuries ago, where art and natural history shared a single stage and where Neff encountered a troubled balance between the impulses of conservation and exploitation. Peale, whose legacy figures prominently in At Liberty, is the point of contact between the exhibition and Neff’s project.
Having formally studied literature (B.A., Temple University) and painting (B.F.A., Philadelphia College of Art; M.F.A., Tyler School of Art), Eileen Neff has been working with photo-based images and installations since 1981. Her work was recently featured in A Natural Paradox, a duo exhibition at Frock Gallery, Ypres, Belgium. In Philadelphia, it appeared in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s exhibition New Grit: Art & Philly Now and in The Windows, a 2021 installation at Bridgette Mayer Gallery. Neff has received numerous awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, and a Leeway Foundation Artist Grant. She has been awarded residencies at Fitler Club in Philadelphia; Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Clermont, Kentucky; Monte Azul Center for the Arts in Costa Rica; MacDowell in Peterborough, New Hampshire; the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia; and La Napoule Art Foundation in France. Neff was a Resident Critic in the MFA Program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 2004 to 2024 and currently teaches MFA students at Tyler School of Art. From 1989 to 2002, she wrote reviews for Artforum International, and she continues to write independently.
Image: Eileen Neff, Peale’s Eyes, Digital maquette, 2023