Élan Cadiz is an interdisciplinary, multi ethnic, multi racial, North American, native New Yorker, and Visual Artist that deconstructs and balances her intersectionality through her projects. Élan’s art and practice are grounded in the documentation of her personal narrative through the use of portraiture, domestic and historical imagery.
Cadiz’s artworks explore the ways societal and personal histories overlap and affect individual relationships, power dynamics and identity. The materials she works with are influenced by the subjects she discuss which is why she moves masterly through mediums, collaging the best materials to convey her visual language.
Élan Cadiz’s intention is to speak to the boundless potential in humanity despite impediments and ways our pasts can inform our future for the better. Her goal is to have viewers question their condition(s) in ways that bring about helpful inner inquiry and thoughtful discussion.
Elan Cadiz explored ideas at the Fashion Institute of Technology for 2 years and shifted interest. She later graduated from City College of New York with a BA in Studio Art and received a MFA Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts where she was awarded the SVA Merit Scholarship, Paul Rhodes Memorial Award and the Martha Trevor Award.
Cadiz has been commissioned by the Studio Museum in Harlem, El Museo de Barrio, Art in Flux Harlem, Mount Vernon Hotel Museum, Weeksville Heritage Center and more. She was one of the first Sustainable Arts Foundation AIRspace Parent Artist Resident at Abrons Art Center and her An American Family Album series was featured in VOGUE. Her artworks can also be found in New American Paintings magazine, issue #146 and #153.
Art Education is an important part of Elan's artistic practice. She has instructed young people in the arts for 24 years and taught for or was in collaboration with programs/institutions such as the Police Athletic League (P.A.L), Astoria Beacon Program, Young Adult Institute (Y.A.I), Casa Duarte, P.S. /I.S. 180, Say Yes To Education (affiliated with Columbia’s Teachers College), Harlem School of the Arts, Thurgood Marshall Upper and Lower Academies, Harlem Gems (Harlem Children Zone), No Longer Empty, Cool Culture, Bank Street College, Weeksville Heritage Center, the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York Historical Society, Center for Arts Education, Community Works NYC, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Children's Museum, the Boys Club of New York City, Foster Pride, the Children's Museum of Manhattan, BridgeHampton Museum, Harlem NeedleArts, and the Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art and Storytelling.
