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Elizabeth Colomba: The ‘New Master’

An image of Elizabeth Colomba standing next to a painting.
Elizabeth Colomba in her studio. Photo by Carla Phillips.
Artwork © 2020 Elizabeth Colomba / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Who: Elizabeth Colomba; artist, friend, story-teller, and iconoclast.

Where: Born in France and of Martiniquais heritage, Colomba studied at the storied Ecole des Beaux Arts. In 1998 Elizabeth moved to the States and has been a permanent resident of NYC since 2011, residing in Harlem while working out of her studio in Midtown. Elizabeth is a an ARS member artist.

What: Colomba creates breathtaking tableaus that reference Old Master techniques while incorporating Western themes. Colomba’s works evoke the classical history paintings of Old Masters, in a style all her own. She is, in short, our ‘New Master.’

How: With technical rigor and a penchant for gold-leafing.

Why: Just ask the artist. In Colomba’s own words: “While acknowledging the past, I wish to reshape the narratives and bend an association of ideas so that a black individual in a period setting is no longer synonymous with subservience and, by extension, does not instill fear or mistrust. The subject becomes the center of her own story and hastens it forward.”