EXHIBITION ARTIST – Fall 2025 – Winter 2026
ÉLAN CADIZ: Healing the Erotic
Pronouns: (she/her)
Photo by Tara Geyer, Courtesy ALMA | LEWIS.
“My artworks explore the ways societal and personal histories overlap and affect individual relationships, power dynamics, and identity… My intention is to speak to the boundless potential in humanity despite impediments… My goal is to ignite personal reflection and contemplation in ways that allow our pasts to inform our present, in order to create a better future for most.”
Élan Cadiz is a multidisciplinary artist based in Harlem, New York, whose work explores the relationship between societal and personal memory, identity, intersectionality, and the connections between differing individuals. Her artistic practice embraces research, portraiture, sculpture, and public art as methods of initiating reflection and encouraging discovery. Her choice of medium is inspired by her subject, with this fluidity collaging the best materials to convey her visual dialect.
Her recent accomplishments include her solo exhibition INHERITED SUCCESSION: Instill and Inspire at the James K. Schmidt Gallery at Principia College (2024), which explored power dynamics, identity, and relationships. Her traveling show Scaffold: Equity of Treatment (2020-present) examines the importance of self-reflection and preservation. Other accomplishments include commissions by Studio Museum in Harlem, Art in Flux Harlem, El Museo del Barrio, and others. She completed the Ma’s House Artist-in-Residency program in Shinnecock Territory, Southampton, New York (2022). Her An American Family Album series, featured in VOGUE Magazine (2019), explored ownership and autonomy.
In 2008, Élan graduated from The City College of New York with a BA in Studio Art and Education. In 2018, Élan earned an MFA from School of Visual Arts in New York City. During her time at School of Visual Arts, Élan received the Martha Trevor Award/Worldstudio AIGA Scholarship, Paula Rhodes Memorial Award, and the School of Visual Arts Merit Scholarship.
In addition to her artistic practice, Élan is an experienced educator. She has instructed youth arts programs at institutions throughout New York City, including the Harlem School of the Arts, Studio Museum in Harlem, Weeksville Heritage Center, the New York Historical Society, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Boys Club of New York City, Foster Pride, the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling, and many more.
Find Élan on Instagram: @elanhiart
