Elizabeth Demaray is a sculptor and interdisciplinary artist known for her inquiries into the interface between the built and the natural environment. Demaray has created listening stations for birds that play human music, fabricated alternative forms of housing for hermit crabs from artificial materials, and built light-sensing robotic supports that allow potted plants to roam freely in search of sunlight and water. Demaray is an associate professor of Fine Arts and head of the sculpture concentration at Rutgers University, Camden. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
In a 2012 essay, Richard Klein, exhibitions director at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, described Demaray's work: In 2005, Demaray, who upholstered stones and knitted sweaters for plants as part of a campaign that she described as "inappropriate care-giving activities," sewed a 27-foot long upholstered cozy for a dormant 10-ton Nike-Hercules Missile in Sausalito, CA. Her Sticks and Stones: The Nike Missile Cozy Project was designed to show the nature of warfare and to familiarize the public with what served as the U.S. land to air defense during the Cold War. In 2006, Demaray designed and produced tiny man-made houses for hermit crabs to address a housing shortage that may have resulted from the over-collecting of seashells by humans. Demaray worked with a paleontologist and a mechanical engineer to design the structures for The Hand Up Project, Attempting to Meet the New Needs of Natural Life Forms. In 2007, Demaray worked with video artist John Walsh to create Inside/Outside: Habitat, on view at the Abington Art Center's Sculpture Park in Jenkintown, PA. The project was designed to explore the musical tastes of local birds, which were offered a selection classical, rock, country and jazz music when they visited 10-foot perches. Demaray said her purpose was to encourage people to think about the impact that humans have on other species. In 2010, Demaray worked with an ant researcher at the American Museum of Natural History to create Corpor Esurit, or we all deserve a break today. The artwork offered a colony of ants food from McDonald's to present a commentary on the effects of the American diet on the creatures that depend on humans for food. In 2011, Demaray collaborated with lichen researcher Natalie Howe to grow lichen on several buildings in New York City. The objective of her project, Lichen for Skyscrapers, was to connect New Yorkers with the natural world in an immediate way. In 2013, Demaray collaborated with engineer Dr. Qingze Zou to create the IndaPlant Project: An Act of Trans-Species Giving. They built autonomously guided light-sensing robotic platforms for houseplants called "floraborgs," which allow potted plants to roam freely in a domestic environment in search of water and sunlight, and alert other floraborgs to their locations. In an article for Quartz, Christopher Mims wrote:
Teaching
Demaray is an associate professor of Fine Arts and head of the sculpture concentration at Rutgers University, Camden. On the Rutgers, New Brunswick, campus, she is a work group advisor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and a co-founder of the DigiHuman Laboratory in the Department of Computer Science, which is dedicated to supporting artistic practice in the fields of computer vision and machine learning. She is an alumna of the board of the College Art Association's New Media Caucus and is a member of the Leonardo Education and Art Forum.
Demaray's work has been exhibited globally. Her galleries and exhibits include the New York MOMA/P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, the New Museum, DADAPost, the Lloyd Digital Lab, the Center d'Art Marnay Art Center, and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum.
Demaray is married to art professor and painter Hugo Bastidas, noted for his large-scale black and white paintings that span geographic and historic time-frames.
