Ellen Driscoll

Oliver Ranch Installation — Ellen Driscoll, “Untitled”, 1989-1990

Ellen Driscoll received a BA in fine arts in 1974 from Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT and in 1980 earned an MFA in sculpture from Columbia University, New York, NY. Driscoll is a professor of sculpture at Rhode Island School of Design. Her work includes installations such as The Loophole of Retreat(Whitney Museum at Phillip Morris, 1991), and Passionate Attitudes (Threadwaxing Space, New York, 1995), public art projects such as As Above, So Below for Grand Central Terminal (1999), a suite of 20 mosaic and glass works for the tunnels at 45th, 47th and 48th streets, Catching the Drift, a women’s restroom for the Smith College Museum of Art (2003), and Aqueous Humour, a kinetic sculpture for the South Boston Maritime Park (2004).

Driscoll has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Anonymous Was a Woman, the LEF Foundation, and Radcliffe’s Bunting Institute. Her work is included in major public and private collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Art.

Honors / Awards
Sirius Art Centre Residency, Cork, Ireland, 2009; LEF Foundation grant for FastForwardFossil; MacDowell Colony Residency, 2008; New England Foundation for the Arts grant for Filament/Firmament; International Association of Art Critics, New England Chapter Best Public Project in Public Space, Second Place Award for Filament/Firmament, Cambridge Public Library, 2007; Pro Patria Mori chosen as one of the top public projects of 2006 by Public Art Network Year in Review MacDowell Colony Residency, Henry Eastwood fellowship; Bogliasco Foundation Residency – Blue Mountain Center residency; LEF Grant, for Lumina Boston Society of Architects Award and for South Boston Maritime Park, 2005; Boston Society of Landscape Architects Award for South Boston Maritime Park; New England Foundation for the Arts for Lumina, 2004; Browne Fund, for Lumina; Artists Resources Trust, Berkshire Community Foundation, 2002; Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio, Italy, Residency, 2001; Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Canada, Residency; Pilchuk Glass School, Stanwood, WA, Artist in Residence, 1999; Massachusetts Cultural Council, Sculpture Fellowship; Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation, Fellowship, 1988-1989; Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan, Visiting Fellow, 1997; Pilchuk Glass School, Stanwood, WA, Artist in Residence; Henson Foundation, evelopment Grant for Ahab’s Wife.

Learn more about Ellen Dirscoll’s art at www.ellendriscoll.net.