Elaine Lazarus

I have always been interested in connections—between people, between ideas, between ourselves and the environments that shape us. My work explores the visible and invisible systems that influence how we see the world, how we relate to one another, and how we become who we are.

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The tree has been present in my work for more than thirty years, serving as both structure and symbol. Formally, it functions as a branching system that organizes and connects the composition. Symbolically, it represents life, resilience, human connection, and our relationship to the natural world. The tree reminds us that nothing exists in isolation. Every branch is connected to something larger than itself. For me, the tree is ultimately a connector—a way of visualizing the relationships that shape how we see ourselves and where we feel we belong.

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Running beneath all of this work is a question about awareness. Why do people see the same situation differently? What allows some people to recognize patterns while others turn away from them? How do power, culture, fear, belonging, and desire shape what we are willing—or unwilling—to see?

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As a teenager, I was captivated by David Hockney's photographic joiners and the way he combined multiple viewpoints into a single image. Later, at Cornell University, I studied painting, photography, digital imaging, and screen printing, exploring how meaning emerges through relationships between images, ideas, and experiences. Before trees became the defining structure of my paintings, I was already interested in how seemingly unrelated things connect and influence one another.

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For more than thirty years, I worked as a graphic designer, creative director, and visual marketer, while continuing to make fine art. That experience gave me an inside view of how images shape perception, how desire is constructed, and how cultural values are communicated. It deepened my curiosity about the stories people tell themselves, the beliefs they inherit, and the systems that quietly influence how they understand the world.

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Many of my earlier works explored femininity, identity, aspiration, memory, and cultural expectation. Paintings such as Dragon Lady, Womanhood, Love Yourself, and The Spirit of Ecstasy examine the ways personal experience intersects with larger cultural forces. Over time, the tree evolved from a compositional device into a visual language for relationships. Its branching form became a way to think about family, community, culture, nature, and the countless influences that connect us to one another.

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By 2024, in works such as Feminine Nature and Female Sunset, I merged the female figure and the landscape. The body was no longer separate from nature but continuous with it. Those paintings were my bridge to my current series, Mutual Power.

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Mutual Power grew from a question that has followed me throughout my life: What if power is not something we possess, but something that moves between us? Influenced in part by my friendship with Riane Eisler and her distinction between power over and power with, the series explores how energy, influence, care, and responsibility move through relationships and communities.

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The figures in Mutual Power are tree-bodies—human forms fused with branching structures, rooted and reaching at the same time. They exist within a network of exchange, affecting and being affected by one another. Their colors describe different forms of energy and awareness. Orange suggests outward force, blue represents return and feedback, and gold represents consciousness—the capacity to recognize ourselves, our relationships, and the systems in which we participate.

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The series is not simply about power. It is about what happens when awareness enters a system. Awareness can create connection, but it can also create discomfort. Once we recognize a pattern, a truth, or a contradiction, we must decide what to do with that knowledge. Some people embrace that responsibility. Others resist it out of fear, habit, or the desire to preserve certainty. That tension interests me deeply.

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My newest work continues to explore these ideas through questions of self-awareness, identity, and transformation. The goal is not simply self-expression, but a deeper understanding of how individuals exist within larger networks of relationship and meaning.

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Making art is my way of participating in that connection. Through my work, I try to make visible the relationships that shape our lives—between people, ideas, cultures, and the natural world. The paintings are not only an exploration of those connections, but an invitation into them. They are my way of reaching outward, creating a space where recognition, reflection, and meaningful exchange can occur.

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I believe that what we contribute to the world matters. Every action, every relationship, and every act of awareness becomes part of a larger network that extends beyond ourselves. My work is rooted in the hope that greater awareness can lead to deeper connection, and that deeper connection can create a more compassionate and meaningful world. We become more fully human when we are willing to see clearly, trust ourselves, and remain connected to others while doing so.

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Making art is how I participate in the world. And through that process, I hope it helps others connect—to themselves, to one another, and to the world around them.

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Elaine Lazarus

2026