Elizabeth Medrano
Instagram: @elizmedrano
Website: https://elizabethmedrano.weebly.com
Bio: Elizabeth Medrano is a mixed-media sculptor currently living and maintaining a studio in San Francisco. After earning a BFA in Sculpture from the Philadelphia College of Art and taking additional coursework at Tyler School of Art, she took a trip to re-meet her father's family in Bogotá, Colombia, which has had a deep impact on her and her artwork. She earned her MFA from San Francisco State University (with a Distinguished Graduate Award in Sculpture), after which Medrano received several grants, including an Artist-in-Residence grant from the California Arts Council and a San Francisco Education Fund Grant for teaching in public schools in Richmond and San Francisco. During that time, she was also awarded a residency at the Edna St. Vincent Millay Colony, taught Sculpture and Art Education at SFSU, continued working in public schools, exhibiting her sculpture and paintings throughout the Bay Area, and being a mom.
Statement: I create bold sculptures that blend organic shapes with sharp textures and vibrant colors. Built and bisque-fired with high fire clay and painted in acrylic, each piece takes its underlying form from roots and tubers — swollen, sort of subterranean bodies set on thin legs, crowned or armed with spikes, horns, and curling growths that read as thorns, sprouts, or eyes pushing outward. The work draws loosely on heirloom yams and sweet potatoes grown in Colombia, prized for the way their color and shape vary from the same rootstock depending on soil, season, the hands that tend them, and their ancient medicinal uses.
My work explores contrasts between protection and vulnerability — armor that also looks soft, ornament that could be defense, a body that reads as both rock-hard and newly emerged. Displayed together, the sculptures behave less like a series than a harvest or a cluster newly surfaced from the same ground, inviting curiosity and reflection to enliven any space with dynamic, intriguing forms.
