Ellen Levy

Ellen K. Levy is an American multimedia artist and scholar whose interdisciplinary work examines the intersections of art, science, technology, and the environment. Since the early 1980s, she has explored how scientific paradigms, complex systems, and environmental crises shape visual culture.

She has explored how art-science collaborations have influenced social and political movements, encouraged environmental activism, and shaped contemporary art’s evolving role. Levy’s work also addresses the increasing interdisciplinarity of design, integrating fields such as engineering, art, and technology, often involving practitioners engaged with emerging technologies. Her engagement with scientific ideas—particularly morphology, systems theory, and eco-catastrophe, has positioned her among figures bridging visual culture and scientific inquiry. Over several decades, her practice has been noted for anticipating contemporary interdisciplinary dialogues at the intersection of art, science, and ecology. As artist Leslie Wayne reflected, “one of [Levy’s] signal achievements was the way in which she’s placed art and science in dialogue.” Levy and Philip Galanter have similarly written that “the study of complexity creates bridges across many branches of science and offers a revolutionary intellectual vector that has ramifications for other disciplines, such as art and philosophy.”

Levy works across various media, including painting, installation, and digital art, and has collaborated with institutions such as NASA and Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. Her research focuses on themes of form, matter, and eco-catastrophe in contemporary art. She has also contributed to scholarship on morphology, perception, and art-science intersections. Provided by Wikipedia