In Eli Craven’s work, images of faces and bodies, often sampled from far flung and anonymous archival photographs, are disrupted, reconnected, and layered in ambiguous ways. Identities and roles in Craven’s work are fluid and defy easy definition. The classic markers of identify — the face and eyes — are often obscured or covered. In his collages, Craven explores how photography obscures just as much about identity and its representation as it reveals.

Craven was the 2022 Aurora + Herron resident, and his work was the subject of Aurora’s 2024 exhibition, Beholden.

Eli Craven (b. 1979) is an American artist currently based in Lafayette, Indiana.  Craven’s research resides in the critical investigation of the image and its relationship to ideologies of sexuality, desire, and death. His work is exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at Kant Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark, KlompChing Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, and at the Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts in Portland, Oregon. His work has also been widely published. Select publications and clients include Corriere della Sera Milan, Gestalten Publishing Berlin, Penguin Random House Barcelona, and The Paris National Opera.  He is the 2024 Michael Aurbach Fellow for Excellence in Visual Art, a 2024 Critical Mass Top 50 finalist, and he is currently Associate Professor of Photography at Purdue University.