Artwork copyright Elissa Greisz. Photo courtesy of the artist.

The Return of the Leopard Women, 1997

Elissa Greisz
American (born 1939)

Location: The Evergreen State College, Olympia

About the Artwork

The Return of the Leopard Women is a mixed-media painting by artist Elissa Greisz. She combined rice paper, acrylic paint, iridescent foil, glitter, and ink to create this bold and energetic abstract composition. The Puget Sound's mysterious and playful underwater world inspired this piece. She notes, "The painting is about motion and setting the viewer's mind and feelings into motion. It is an event where the forms become animated. The shapes and forms are being subjected to internal and external forces. Things are bubbling out, blossoming, bursting, bristling, as well as attracting and repelling. Everything in the painting is moving, changing, in a state of transformation."

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with The Evergreen State College.

About the Artist

Elissa Greisz is a Port Townsend, Washington-based artist who creates abstract mixed-media wall sculptures, paintings, and weavings. Her work emphasizes intricate patterns. She notes “I borrow from Byzantine art, my Mexican heritage, sci-fi illustrations, other art, ornamentation, jewelry and tattoos. And the transformation of inert materials becomes my modern-day alchemy.”
Greisz studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Visual Art and Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She moved to Washington State in 1983.