Photo by Ben McMillan
Elena Unger grew up in Vancouver, Canada and moved to London in 2015 to study art. She is an alumnus of Fine Art at Goldsmiths, as well as a recent graduate of Philosophical Theology at the University of Cambridge. While primarily a painter, Elena combines painting, sculpture, performance, sound, film, and installation to produce immersive, extra-liturgical installations. Elena’s artwork is inextricably linked to her philosophical work, which is concerned with the ontology of artistic making, and how works of art do not merely represent the divine but participate in it. Elena frequently exhibits across London in both group and solo exhibitions. Elena was recently a CHASE Junior Research Fellow at Goldsmiths in Theology and Art, as well as an artist in residence at Saint Bartholomew the Great, London’s oldest church.
Selected Exhibitions and Residencies
ELEVEN TWENTY THREE, Saint Bartholomew the Great, 20 artist group show curated by Elena Unger and Heidi Pearce. April-may 2023
20 x 20 Vision, Citizens Art London - 2023
Artist in Residence at Saint Bartholomew the Great - 2023
Saatchi Gallery w/ StART Art - by invitation – 2022
Safehouse Gallery group show -by invitation – 2022
SET Studios Summer Showcase – by invitation – 2022
Theology and Art film exhibition, Goldsmiths University – 2020
Research fellowship in religion and art at Goldsmiths – 2019-2020
Invisible Church, Saint James Hatcham -2019
Fragment – Saint Bartholomew the Great – 2018
Press and Publications
British Vogue December Issue - Vogue Gallery Feature
https://fadmagazine.com/2023/04/29/the-top-5-art-exhibitions-to-see-in-london-in-early-may-2/
https://www.londonartroundup.com/reviews/london-art-roundup-2023-issue-61
900 Years of Saint Bartholomew the Great; The History, art, and Architecture of London’s Oldest Church - (History Book) Ed Charlotte Gauthier
The Teleology of the Sublime for MASS Press, 2018
CVLT press, Freezing Moon; The Paintings of Elena Unger ,2015
Awards and Funding
Painter- Stainers sponsorship/ funding award for Eleven Twenty Three exhibition
Culture Mile BID sponsorship/ funding award for Eleven Twenty Three exhibition
Mackenzie Art Award, 2023
CHASE and MARS Junior Research Fellowship and funding for Religion and Art Symposium
Emmanuel College Cambridge MPhil studentship, 2019
Academic Conferences
Emmanuel College Cambridge Graduate Symposium
New Trinitarian Ontologies Conference, Caesura and Time in Denis Saurat and Giorgio Agamben
CHASE and MARS symposium on Art and theology.
Desert Time: The Silence at the Heart of Apocalypse presented at a symposium with CENSAMM and Kings College London, 2018.