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. Residencies include Chicago Arts Coalition (Chicago, IL), The Palace Residency (Pałac Gorzanów, PL), ACRE (Steuben, WI), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Los Angeles, CA), and Dream Farm Commons (Oakland, CA). She has received awards including the Midwest Award for Artists with Disabilities, Ignite Fund Recipient from the Regranting Program for The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Individual Artist Award from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and the Pritzker Family Foundation Scholarship. Upcoming and recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Patchwork Farms (Chicago, IL), ANDREW RAFACZ(Chicago, IL), Lancaster Museum of Art & History (Lancaster, CA), Watershed Art & Ecology (Chicago, IL), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Los Angeles, CA), and Dream Farm Commons (Oakland, CA). Recent group exhibitions include G99 & Brno AIR (Brno, CZ), The Palace Collective (Berlin, DE), Co-Prosperity (Chicago, IL), The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL), Heaven Gallery (Chicago, IL), Cal State LA Fine Art Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Wood Street Encampment (Oakland, CA), VideoDrome Paris & S.O.F.A. (Lucca, IT), and Ever Gold [Projects] (San Francisco, CA). Art fairs include: NADA Miami, ANDREW RAFACZ (Miami, FL), NADA NY, ANDREW RAFACZ (New York, NY), and SPACORE, MDW FAIR, Mana Contemporary (Chicago, IL). Elston has been reviewed and featured in many publications, including: New City, The Chicago Reader, The Latch, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Videodrome Paris. Elston is the co-curator of SPACORE, an ongoing curatorial project with 95 artists producing exhibitions, publications, and interactive experiences that examine the labor of wellness capitalism. She is also the 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