Eva Sturm-Gross | Beasts of Eden | E.N. Wennberg Gallery

Biography | Eva Sturm-Gross is a Brooklyn-based artist and woodworker. Drawing from theology, mysticism, and narrative traditions, her practice explores the intersection of traditional craft and visual exegesis. She holds a BA in Studio Art and Religious Studies from Oberlin College and has exhibited nationally at the Wharton Esherick Museum, Ohio Craft Museum, the Kent Museum, and Art Basel Miami Beach, among others. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center and Penland School of Craft and currently teaches woodworking and carving in New York. Eva is the Art Director of Gashmius Magazine, an online publication putting out politically progressive Jewish content drawing from Hasidic and mystical sources. Her work engages themes of exile, redemption, and the sacred through embodied and narrative forms.

Artist Statement | Eva Sturm-Gross’s work operates as a form of visual exegesis. Using symbols and characters borrowed from philosophy, theology, and literature, she reconstitutes them into images and sculptures that tease out mythic narratives resonating both personally and collectively. Narrative plays a central role in her work, yet is fragmented from a linear sense of past, present, and future. Biblical archetypes have been central to this project. She is interested in creating a cross-section where history collapses in on itself, and the material and transcendent become singular. The conceptual and academic exploration within her practice is equally met by a ceaseless commitment to material process. Much of her work is carved in wood, whether as sculpture or matrix. Its potency rests in the physical manifestation of beauty, disclosed through her unfolding relationship with material and her deep commitment to the pursuit of revelation.