Elizabeth Joyce Telep grew up in a small New England lake town in Eastern Connecticut. From a young age, her parents emphasized the importance of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Although she lost touch with Him as a teenager; by the time she was in university, she was earnestly seeking a connection to an omnipotent God that she knew existed. 

In 2012, Elizabeth graduated high school and received the University of Hartford’s Artistic Merit scholarship. She started her formal art education at the Hartford Art School, working towards her BFA in Illustration and Art History.

It was there she began searching for spiritual understanding through the ways the world put in front of her: new age, occult knowledge, and psychedelics. She embraced a syncretist view, with a particular interest in Native American traditions and Eastern philosophy. It was during this time that she was first invited to participate in entheogenic indigenous ceremonies at a local culture center. 

Elizabeth decided to take a pause from her formal education when she received the opportunity to travel to Sedona, Arizona with a small Native American Church group. She feels honored to have met such gracious people and to have had the opportunity to experience their spiritual traditions firsthand. However, her entheogenic explorations led her to participate in various shamanic ayahuasca ceremonies, which brought detrimental consequences. When she was 21 years old, Elizabeth suffered through a mental health crisis that was induced by a three-night ayahuasca ceremony. She fled back to Connecticut where she battled psychosis for 6 months until she recovered by God's grace and her family's support. The traumatic experience left her depressed and spiritually apathetic, resulting in a 5-year-long hiatus from art marking. 

During this time, Elizabeth redirected her focus. With the encouragement of her father, she decided to pursue a new avenue of interest in mechanical drafting. Elizabeth received her Computer-Aided Design Certificate and entered the Aerospace industry as a drafter in 2017, where she assisted in the design of ground support equipment and air management systems. However, her research into systematic corruption influenced her to leave her position in 2024. She continues to work on 3-dimensional models, assemblies, and technical drawings in the renewable energy field.

When life drastically changed in 2020, Elizabeth found herself working remotely and spending all her time quarantining with family. Nevertheless, it was a welcomed break from “office culture” for her. In the sanctuary of her husband’s childhood home, her love and passion for art was revived. She spent her newly acquired free time drawing small surrealistic value drawings, often in her Mother-in-Laws garden. She became endlessly inspired by the happiness her drawings brought to her close friends and family.

Less than a year later, Elizabeth and her husband bought their first home. Her new space provided her the solitude to reflect on her experiences and she began seeking answers to all of her unresolved questions. She slowly began to mend her relationship with God and her passion for researching alternative history and conspiracies led her back to the Bible. Elizabeth became a born-again Christian in June of 2023. She aspires to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ through her artwork, forever seeking to invoke the Holy Spirit in other’s hearts. 

As she patiently flows through her lengthy artistic process, she loves listening to various contrarian authors and content creators such as Paul Stobbs, Joe Telford, Vitaliy Podgornyy, Gary Wayne, and Jerry Marzinsky.

Her new space has also allowed her to expand her artistic interests; after spending the previous few years dedicated to small graphite drawings, Elizabeth moved onto creating large scale oil paintings to finally capture the vibrant colors of her favorite subjects. Elizabeth loves to portray clear blue skies contrasted against bright primary colors. She takes on complex and detailed compositions often depicting Gothic and Greco-Roman architecture that is lovingly juxtaposed with vividly colored birds, flowers, and animals from her garden.

Notable subjects she is currently exploring include the rose window of the Washington D.C. National Cathedral and the National Capitol Columns. The two pieces are her current works in progress and are a part of a broader series of oil paintings. The first piece in the series, titled Agency, was completed in July 2022 and she is currently finalizing the second, Spirit of Truth.