The installation work of Eli Craven and Maria Chavez comes from the interdisciplinary overlap of the built environment and the visual arts. Their collaborations search for new meaning through the reinterpretation of conventional ideas.

The project “Transitory Periods of Greatness” manifested through conversations about transition and the magnitude of change we are experiencing. The current iteration of the project takes form as an installation consisting of images and objects combined to investigate our relationship to the earth. Images of the natural landscape, both dead and alive, reflect gestures of resistance and acceptance. Clay, beeswax, and wood are utilized to draw material and formal connections to the image and suggest a cyclical exchange between the two. Through this work, we recognize the futility of our efforts to resolve our impact as artists and as human beings. Nevertheless, we aim to find beauty in the conditions of the transitory and the unknown.

Eli Craven is an artist living and working in Lafayette, Indiana where he is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Purdue University. He creates image-related objects and installations to explore the relationship between representation and desire. His work has been exhibited and published nationally and internationally. Recently his work has been exhibited at KlompChing Gallery in Brooklyn, NY and at Feinkunst Krüger Gallery in Hamburg, Germany.

Maria Chavez practices art and architecture in Lafayette, Indiana. She has taught in the architecture department at the University of California Berkeley and in the art department at Boise State University. Her work in the visual arts is informed by spatial and material investigations in the transient nature of architecture.