Elizabeth Bergeland

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Elizabeth Bergeland uses oil and canvas to create realistic portraiture or figurative aspects, placed in abstracted or surrealist environments, with heavy use of symbolism, or surrealist still life.

Elizabeth Bergeland (b. 1983) grew up in Wyoming and Colorado before earning her BFA in Painting and Anthropology from the University of Colorado in 2006.

Bergeland’s work merges figurative realism with surreal or imagined spaces. Always rich in symbolism, her recent work leans deeply personal, reflecting themes of connection, doubt, and the passage of time.

Her paintings have been exhibited nationally, with her first solo exhibition, Quiet Boy, (Hotbed Gallery, Philadelphia) in 2022.

Her work has been featured in Create Magazine, Philadelphia Magazine, Friend of the Artist, 1st Look TV, Root Quarterly, The Visionary Projects, and the 2024 edition of SPRING/BREAK Art Show, where she was selected as the Artist Spotlight curated by the fair’s founders.

She is also the illustrator of Being Edie is Hard Today (2019) and The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection (2021), the latter earning a Kirkus Star, an NPR review, and a spot on Smithsonian Magazine’s “10 Best Children’s Books of 2021.”

She lives and works in Philadelphia, PA with her husband and three children.

"Art is the grand disruptor. It's the thing that truly and uniquely sets us apart as a species, and for me, its here to push curiosity, our sense of play, to create portals for the present and future, and allow us to dream up brand new worlds to live in- all this, to hopefully open up and broaden public discourse."