Last Postcards

2009 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

4H x 6W inches, 3.5H x 5.5W inches

Elisheva Biernoff

year born: 1980
gender: female
nationality: American

Last Postcards is a series of three small double-sided paintings on plywood in which Biernoff imagines the last communications from explorers lost in the wilderness. Biernoff’s choice of Everett Ruess, Percy Fawcett, and the conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader is particularly telling. On one level, the Last Postcards analogize the nineteenth-century explorer with the contemporary artist who looks for purpose in their work. This series continues Biernoff’s interest in the construction of myths and, to a certain extent, of utopias, ideas which have deep resonance in the cultural imagery of the West Coast. The careful, painted reproduction of a mass-produced object like a postcard reinforces this fictive aspect.


Elisheva Biernoff’s work engages and reconsiders the tradition of painting in an interesting way, often taking source material from media or recreating photographs through a careful trompe d’oeil technique. Thus, her work engages in the discussion of re-representation through painting, not aiming to portray any given reality faithfully but rather as the ideal way to engage with a subject matter that explores the intersection between myths, fictions and fantasies. In some cases, her works also address particular ecological concerns.


Colors:



Long Long Live
© » KADIST

Yao Jui-Chung

2013

Long Long Live (2013) takes the viewer to the setting of the Oasis Villa on Green Island, once a reform and re-education prison to house political prisoners during Taiwan’s martial law period...

Untitled 6/10 i-xxii
© » KADIST

Nathaniel Dorsky

2010

Dorsky’s pieces included in the Kadist Collection are small still photographs from twelve of his most important films...

Captain X
© » KADIST

Luke Butler

2008

In Captain X , Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner, is limply draped over a large boulder in what looks like a hostile alien environment...

The Breaks
© » KADIST

Juan Capistran

2002

The Breaks reflects Capistran’s interests in sampling and fusing different cultural, social, and historical sources...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

They Were Here
© » KADIST

Elisheva Biernoff

2009

In her recent work, Biernoff is interested in investigating fictions and fantasies embedded in the remnants of consumer culture (for example magazines) or through ephemera such as postcards and old photographs...

Long Long Live
© » KADIST

Yao Jui-Chung

2013

Long Long Live (2013) takes the viewer to the setting of the Oasis Villa on Green Island, once a reform and re-education prison to house political prisoners during Taiwan’s martial law period...

Untitled 6/10 i-xxii
© » KADIST

Nathaniel Dorsky

2010

Dorsky’s pieces included in the Kadist Collection are small still photographs from twelve of his most important films...

Corrupted file from page 14, (V1)
© » KADIST

Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck

2008

Part of a larger series of photographic works, Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck’s Corrupted file from page 14 (V1) from the series La Vega, Plan Caracas No...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Dad is Byron
© » KADIST

Diamond Stingily

2017

Dad is Byron is an audio work produced in collaboration between Diamond Stingily and her father, the house musician Byron Stingily...

Utarand II
© » KADIST

Prabhakar Kamble

2022

To produce the series of sculptures collectively titled Utarand , Prabhakar Kamble relocated his studio to Kolhapur, Maharashtra, near the village where he was born into a family of daily wage earners...

Disability Arts: Critical Conversations between South Korea and Singapore
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Disability Arts: Critical Conversations between South Korea and Singapore | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints February 24, 2022 Disability Arts: Critical Conversations between South Korea and Singapore Presented by ArtsEquator, Equal Dreams and Taeyoon Choi Studio Disability Arts has emerged as a powerful and dynamic area of practice within the wider arts and cultural landscape regionally in recent years...

Untold Stories
© » ROYAL ACADEMY

Untold Stories | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts Richard Cosway RA, Richard and Maria Cosway, and Ottobah Cugoano (detail), 1784...

Other works by: » Elisheva Biernoff  
» see more

They Were Here
© » KADIST

Elisheva Biernoff

2009

In her recent work, Biernoff is interested in investigating fictions and fantasies embedded in the remnants of consumer culture (for example magazines) or through ephemera such as postcards and old photographs...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Adelita Husni-Bey
© » KADIST

Adelita Husni-Bey, in conversation with Ilaria Gianni, presents her work “Postcards from the Desert Island”....

Mapa Mundi BR (postal)
© » KADIST

Rivane Neuenschwander

2007

Mapa-Mundi BR (postal) is a set of wooden shelves holding postcards that depict locations in Brazil named for foreign countries and cities...

98m (the Height of the Campanile, San Marco, Venice, in Super 8mm Film)
© » KADIST

Elizabeth McAlpine

2005

Elizabeth McAlpine’s work frequently deals with time based issues as well as the experience of watching...

Artists' Postcards: A Compendium, By Jeremy Cooper
© » THE INDEPENDENT

Artists' Postcards: A Compendium, By Jeremy Cooper | The Independent | The Independent Of interest to students of art and deltiologists (collectors of postcards) alike, Jeremy Cooper's extensively illustrated book provides the first critical study of the place of the humble postcard in the history of art...