From the art of healing to the healing power of art.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
-Mary Oliver
Elizabeth Priller, Nurse & Visual Artist
Watercolor • Ink • Film
Where It Started
At three years old, I opened my parents’ wedding album and felt the light—soft on lace, holding emotion, telling a story. That moment sparked my lifelong love of visual storytelling as a professional photographer.
Twenty Years in Healing
For over two decades as a nurse leader and portrait photographer, my favorite moments were the same: finding ways to showing who people were on the inside in a visual way.
Today’s Work
Now I bring that same spirit into hand-drawn watercolor and ink. From practicing the art of healing to now to practicing the healing power of art. With 25 years in nursing, compassion for living beings is simply part of how I create.
What’s Next
Drawing from a background in nursing and lived experience with disabilities, my work centers on calm, resilience, and the pause between effort and rest. Whether painted on paper or captured on film, my work preserves the stories that connect us as humans.
From My Heart and Hands to Your Home
Each piece is crafted with intention and sent with care. Whether a playful doodle, soft watercolor, or soulful portrait, I hope it offers deep emotion, memory, and a sense of home.
Thank you for supporting Elizabeth Priller Studio. I'm so glad you're here.
Artist Statement
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Artist, Nurse, & Educator
b.1980, Chicago, Illinois
I am a contemporary ink and watercolor artist, born in Chicago and now based in Northwest Illinois.
I begin with observation and structure, then loosen my grip where it matters. My work is grounded in representational drawing, but I allow expressive distortion, selective abstraction, and visible revision to remain part of the finished piece. I work in layers, paying close attention to value, temperature, and anatomy, with particular emphasis on the eyes—the place where presence, emotion, and connection tend to surface first.
My background in nursing and education shapes how I see people and how I paint them. Nursing taught me to notice what the body reveals without words—posture, tension, fatigue, pain, and resilience. Education taught me to value curiosity and the moment when something clicks or shifts emotionally for another person. Together, these experiences guide my work toward making visible what is often missed in the human experience.
Living with disabilities has deepened this way of seeing. It has taught me that a person is not defined by their physical form alone. I approach portraiture with the goal of showing the individual beyond the body—as someone carrying history, emotion, strength, and vulnerability. I want the essence of the person to come through, not just the outward appearance.
Watercolor is essential to how I do this. Its transparency and unpredictability mirror lived experience—layered, imperfect, and shaped over time. I allow edges to soften, stains to remain, and earlier decisions to show. Rather than correcting everything, I let the painting hold its history, much like the people I paint.
My Influences (Invisible Board of Directors)
Lorraine Simonds — contemporary watercolor painter
Structural restraint and confidence in leaving areas unresolved.Polina Bright — contemporary figurative painter
Expressive abstraction within representational form.Charles Reid — master watercolorist
Value-based structure and disciplined simplification.John Singer Sargent — portrait painter
Decisive mark-making and psychological presence.Claude Monet — Impressionist painter
Use of color, atmosphere, and edge as structural tools.Gordon Parks — documentary photographer
Human-centered framing and dignity in representation.Amy Sherald — contemporary figurative painter
Selective realism and clarity of intent.Sarah Mapps Douglass — educator, artist, and activist
Integration of art, learning, and purpose.Edmonia Lewis — neoclassical sculptor
Integrity and persistence in figurative representation.Vivian Maier — street photographer
Attention to unguarded, transitional moments.Clementine Hunter — self-taught folk artist
Directness, authenticity, and trust in personal vision.
Ultimately, my work is about revealing what is often overlooked. Through structure, material, and observation, I aim to make visible the human experience—its weight, complexity, and presence—without relying on narrative or embellishment.