About The Artist

Elizabeth Szymczak’s first thoughts of leadership in the fine arts can actually take her back to her days in high school. She worked closely with her first painting instructor, Mr. John Mayer. Together they presented to the board of education to acknowledge college credit for advanced placement art students. Szymczak was able to bypass introductory classes and take higher level art courses as an underclassman. For her undergraduate degree, Elizabeth Szymczak attended the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater to study studio art, education, and dance. She ended up graduating with a Bachelor’s of Science in Art Education and a Dance minor. Elizabeth was involved in/or spearheaded many opportunities for the student body and community in the area of fine art. She received several scholarships, awards, and juried exhibitions; her favorite being a Purchase Award from the University of Wisconsin because her work is now part of the university’s permanent collection. She is one of the founding officers of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Dance Company (UWWDC), a university organization dedicated to raising funds in order to receive more learning opportunities for dance students. Inside the company, Elizabeth was the founding director of the Emerging Choreographer’s Concert (ECC), an additional opportunity for dancers, choreographers, and guest artists to showcase their work. Upon graduation, Elizabeth’s strength as a visual communicator landed her a job as a technological literacy and graphic arts instructor for grades 6-8. During that time, she was on the Technology Standards Review Committee, working with a team to update their standards to the 21st Century, which were presented and approved by the board of education. A year later, she was teaching art for a K-8 school district, where she provided an incredible amount of enrichment opportunities for her students and community. For example, she spearheaded an annual district-wide exhibition by partnering with the local library for Youth Art Month, a collaboration that awarded the library a generous grant from the Illinois Library Association in 2013. Szymczak is a leader, and has experience in initiating ideas from the ground up. She has made significant contributions and has played various leadership roles within arts education. For example, she originated the Illinois Art Education Association member’s online gallery, which celebrates the artist-teacher and will hopefully inspire other art educators to model and advocate for literacy within the arts. From 2009-2012, Elizabeth Szymczak attended the Academy of Art University, where she received an MFA in Representational Drawing & Painting. In the summer of 2010, she studied landscape painting en plein air in Italy. Szymczak’s graduate thesis project entitled, Choreographed Color, used dancers as models for her representational figure paintings. But Elizabeth wasn’t looking to become another Degas, and wasn’t interested in making paintings of beautiful ballerinas leaping across the stage either. The ideas for her paintings come from her own performance and choreographic experience, which give her paintings a unique perspective. After completing her graduate thesis project, Elizabeth has been exhibiting in galleries, festivals, and juried shows throughout the Chicagoland area. One of her favorite memories was being awarded Best of Show at the Libertyville Fine Arts Festival (2012) because that landed her a job teaching adults at the David Adler Music & Arts Center in Libertyville, Illinois. Elizabeth is looking to transition into teaching higher education and spending more of her studio time on her own paintings. Szymczak was commissioned towards the end of 2013 by the College of Lake County in collaboration with Valerie Alpert Dance Company, where she incorporated video and live painting performance into her creative repertoire. The collaborative project entitled, “Notes From An Artist,” has inspired Elizabeth, having had the unique opportunity and experience of performance painting on stage and looks forward, as always, to painting.