Elise Toups’s identity as a Louisiana Woman is the primary force in her work. Her lifelong relationship with and engagement with art is deeply familial. The first media Elise worked in were performance and video when she was three and her grandmother would make costumes in which Elise would parade about in front of a video camera. Her mother is also a painter, and the two began painting together when Elise was twelve. Her father’s favorite day of the year is Fat Tuesday, when he and Elise costume and parade through the streets of the French Quarter with the Society of St. Anne. This costuming and parading have allowed Elise to draw strength from a party masquerade aesthetic.
In 2005, Elise graduated with a degree in psychology and a minor in painting from Louisiana State University. In the six years between her undergraduate studies and graduate school, she painted professionally and taught extensively in Baton Rouge. She then moved to Lansing, Michigan, discovered seasons, and earned her MFA from Michigan State University. This postgraduate education made Elise reexamine and reconceptualize the role of art in her life and in the world. She broadened her artistic training when she took a one-year hiatus from painting to study digital fabrication, feminism, and performance. After her third winter, Elise was magnetized back to New Orleans and the steaming, subtropical climate into which she was born. Her work is an expression of the ornate, gaudy, hermitic old woman who lives inside her mind and heart. Her pieces have been shown in the Louisiana Arts and Science Museum, the Louisiana State University Museum of Art, the Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, in galleries across the United States, and in Joinville, Brazil.
In 2005, Elise graduated with a degree in psychology and a minor in painting from Louisiana State University. In the six years between her undergraduate studies and graduate school, she painted professionally and taught extensively in Baton Rouge. She then moved to Lansing, Michigan, discovered seasons, and earned her MFA from Michigan State University. This postgraduate education made Elise reexamine and reconceptualize the role of art in her life and in the world. She broadened her artistic training when she took a one-year hiatus from painting to study digital fabrication, feminism, and performance. After her third winter, Elise was magnetized back to New Orleans and the steaming, subtropical climate into which she was born. Her work is an expression of the ornate, gaudy, hermitic old woman who lives inside her mind and heart. Her pieces have been shown in the Louisiana Arts and Science Museum, the Louisiana State University Museum of Art, the Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, in galleries across the United States, and in Joinville, Brazil.
| Elise Toups CV |
Press
Jessica Faust, Southern Review, Cover Spotlight Summer issue, 2017
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/663663/pdf
Janey Hogan, Belle Journal, A Literary Journal for Southern Voices and Visions, Volume II, 2017
http://www.bellejournal.com/
Benjamin Leger, 225, Artisit’s Perspective: Elise Toups’ dreamlike painting, January 2016
https://www.225batonrouge.com/our-city/arts-entertainment/artists-perspective-elise-toups-dreamlike-painting
James Fox-Smith, Country Roads, Cover of the Escapes Issue, April 2014
Janey Hogan, Belle Journal, A Literary Journal for the Modern Southern Belle, Winter 2013
Jeff Roedel, “Taking Pictures with her,” 225 magazine, July 31, 2011
Christie Matherne, “Psychology + Canvas,” DIG Baton Rouge Uncovered, May 11, 2011
David Jacobs, “A blank canvas,” Baton Rouge Business Report, August 11, 2008
State News
http://statenews.com/article/2013/04/comeback-of-the-canvas
The Advocate Teacher Inspires Toups
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/entertainment_life/art/article_35ab8b43-dbb4-5840-ac8b-121c0282c4cd.html
Broad Museum
http://broadmuseum.msu.edu/exhibitions/master-fine-arts-exhibition-0
Jessica Faust, Southern Review, Cover Spotlight Summer issue, 2017
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/663663/pdf
Janey Hogan, Belle Journal, A Literary Journal for Southern Voices and Visions, Volume II, 2017
http://www.bellejournal.com/
Benjamin Leger, 225, Artisit’s Perspective: Elise Toups’ dreamlike painting, January 2016
https://www.225batonrouge.com/our-city/arts-entertainment/artists-perspective-elise-toups-dreamlike-painting
James Fox-Smith, Country Roads, Cover of the Escapes Issue, April 2014
Janey Hogan, Belle Journal, A Literary Journal for the Modern Southern Belle, Winter 2013
Jeff Roedel, “Taking Pictures with her,” 225 magazine, July 31, 2011
Christie Matherne, “Psychology + Canvas,” DIG Baton Rouge Uncovered, May 11, 2011
David Jacobs, “A blank canvas,” Baton Rouge Business Report, August 11, 2008
State News
http://statenews.com/article/2013/04/comeback-of-the-canvas
The Advocate Teacher Inspires Toups
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/entertainment_life/art/article_35ab8b43-dbb4-5840-ac8b-121c0282c4cd.html
Broad Museum
http://broadmuseum.msu.edu/exhibitions/master-fine-arts-exhibition-0