About

Eliza McKenna (b. 1997, Rhinebeck, NY) is an artist and mystic based in the Hudson Valley, NY. Her work delves into grief, memory, and consciousness beyond the body through photography, storytelling, and experimental materials. She holds a BA in Film Studies from Wesleyan University and an MFA in Photography from Pratt Institute.

Her artistic path was profoundly shaped by personal loss. The deaths of her half-brother and father marked a turning point, leading her to use photography as a way to reconstruct memory and process grief. In her early work, she collaborated with proxies to reimagine and reconstruct the physical presence of her late loved ones, exploring how absence can transform into connection through creative acts.

This practice has since expanded into collaborations with strangers, whom she meets through word-of-mouth, the internet, or chance encounters. She visits their homes, interviews them about their experiences of grief and loss, and creates images that document both their stories and the act of intentional connection.

Guided by a prophetic desire to ask as many questions as possible about grief, death, and the nature of consciousness, Eliza weaves personal and collective narratives into a meditation on what lies within and beyond the body. Her work is both a personal reckoning and an invitation for others to transform their relationship with loss into one where sorrow and joy meet.