Elizabeth Allen-Cannon: Sun Shade
January 2026
Opening Reception: January 17th, 2-4pm
Curated by Flounder Lee
928 NW 21st Ave, Gainesville, Florida
Artist Statement
The function of any shade is to limit the unpleasant effects of sunlight: to increase one’s time in the sun by tempering the harsh effects of it. While sunshine is nurturing and pleasant, it is also radiation, quickly becoming fatal without the protective partition of the atmosphere.
For all of our time beneath it, the sun remains elusive—we cannot see it directly, and to attempt to do so is to blind oneself. And yet, sunlight not only makes the world visible, but is responsible for the growth and nourishment of everything on it.
In this installation, a shade sail serves as the substrate for a painting of saturated, cloud-like forms. Standing in contrast to the subtropical scenery of Central Florida, this work imagines theshield of ether between us and the essential yet unyielding force of the sun. What is our threshold for unbearable necessity? How do we position ourselves relative to such forces? And what structures must we build to support our own flourishing?
Artist Biography
Working primarily in painting and artist’s books, Elizabeth Allen-Cannon explores how the self is reproduced, divided, and contained, and the tensions that arise between one’s inner and outer
worlds. She is interested in the relationship between the self and landscape, and nature’s capacity to hold both emotion and memory. Her work engages the drama between framing device and pictorial space; the real and the abstract.
Elizabeth received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2011, and her MFA from University of Chicago in 2017. She has participated in residencies at Charlotte Street Foundation (Kansas City, MO), Ox-bow (Saugatuck, MI), and Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY). Her work has been published in New American Paintings and documenta 14 “South”. She has exhibited at EXPO Chicago (Chicago, IL), Tempus Projects (Tampa, FL), Nationale (Portland, OR), Roots and Culture Contemporary Art Center (Chicago, IL), Rockhurst University (Kansas City, MO), Carthage College (Kenosha, WI), Haw Contemporary (Kansas City, MO), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), Blanc Gallery (Chicago, IL), The Weather Station (Lafayette, IN), Stop Gap Projects (Columbia, MO), and Heiress (St. Petersburg, FL), among others. In 2015, her artist book “Native Tongues” was acquired by the Artist Book Library at the Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY) and in 2021, received the Exile Books Exhibitor Prize at Small Press Fair (Fort Lauderdale, FL). Her artist book entitled “Heat, Tropics, Magic, Juice” was selected for an Individual Artist Project Grant by the Florida Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture.
Elizabeth has given lectures about her practice at Kansas City Art Institute (Kansas City, MO), University of North Florida (Jacksonville, FL) and University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL), and has served as an guest critic at University of Chicago (Chicago, IL). Elizabeth currently teaches in the Performing and Visual Art Department at Eastern Florida State College (Cocoa, FL) and directs Causeway, an artist-run gallery space in Cocoa Beach, FL that she founded in 2024.
@aallenc
www.elizabethallencannon.com
www.causewayfl.com
Upcoming Exhibitions
Elizabeth Allen-Cannon, Solo Show, January 2026