SERENA JV ELSTON (American, b.1987) lives and works in Chicago, IL. She received her MFA in from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2023 and her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2009. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include ANDREW RAFACZ (Chicago, IL), Watershed Art & Ecology Center with Vince Phan (Chicago, IL), and Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Los Angeles, CA). Recent group exhibitions include the Museum of Art & Art History (Lancaster, CA), G99 & Brno AIR (Brno, CZ), Co-Prosperity (Chicago, IL), Cal State LA Fine Art Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), and VideoDrome Paris & S.O.F.A. (Lucca, IT). Elston is the recipient of the Pritzker Family Foundation Scholarship, The Ignite Fund (A Regional Regranting Program for The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts), Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) Individual Artist Award, and the Transformative Climate Communities Grant for Oakland Public Library Design, among others. Recent and upcoming art fairs include NADA NY and NADA Miami. Her work has been featured in NewCity, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Reader, Gertie Chicago, and The Latch.

Elston is the co-curator of SPACORE, an immersive 45-artist exhibition examining the labor of wellness capitalism, and creator of Siren Island, a floating stage for actively re-contextualizing the mythologies of land through live theater events on the open water.

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Serena JV Elston, Hauntology I, Ursula Le Guin: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.”, 2025, synthetic bone, Spalted Maple, sensor, speaker, single channel audio, 26 x 20 x 4 in.
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Serena JV Elston, Hauntology II, David Graeber: “…how did we get stuck?… How did we lose that political self-consciousness, once so typical of our species? How did we come to treat eminence and subservience not as temporary expedients… but as inescapable elements of the human condition? If we started out just playing games, at what point did we forget that we were playing?”, 2025, synthetic bone, Spalted Maple, sensor, speaker, single channel audio, 26 x 20 x 4 in.
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Serena JV Elston, Hauntology III, Mark Fisher: “Capital is an abstract parasite, an insatiable vampire and zombie maker; but the living flesh it converts into dead labor is ours, and the zombies it makes are us”, 2025, synthetic bone, Spalted Maple, sensor, speaker, single channel audio, 26 x 20 x 4 in.
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Serena JV Elston, Blood Etching II, 2025, marble, blood, Spalted Maple, 18 x 26 in.
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Serena JV Elston, Transubstantiation, 2025, Reishi tea, ceramics by mack baker, copper wash, glaze, Spalted Maple, 50 x 30 x 27 in.
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Serena JV Elston, Blood Etching I, 2025, Calacatta Viola Marble, blood, Spalted Maple, 24 x 32 in.
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Serena JV Elston, Lingering Bodies, Installation View, 2025.
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Serena JV Elston, Caryatid II, 2025, Reishi mushroom, 69 x 19.75 x 15 in.
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Serena JV Elston, Caryatid I, 2025 Reishi mushroom, 80 x 23.5 x 15.75 in.
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Serena JV Elston Strigil Oil, 2025, oil with the artist’s pheromones collected from her pregnant body over a 73 hour duration from when she went into labor until delivery. Presented for the viewer to dab on their own skin; the porosity of skin allows the transfer and absorption of the suspended chemicals. 56 x 8.5 x 6 in.
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Serena JV Elston, Chthonic Entities I, 2025, bronze, green marble, grout, 16 x 17.5 x 8 in.
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Serena JV Elston, Cathonic Entities IV, 2025, bronze, marble, grout, 24.25 x 20.5 x 14.25 in.
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Serena JV Elston, Lingering Bodies, Installation View, 2025.
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Serena JV Elston, Lingering Bodies, Installation View, 2025
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Serena JV Elston, Lingering Bodies, Installation View, 2025.
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Serena JV Elston, Lingering Bodies, Installation View, 2025.
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Gallery Exhibitions