About Ellen

Ellen Benjoya Skotheim studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and received a B.A. in Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, and a M.A. in Urban Planning from Antioch College in San Francisco. She has studied watercolor painting with Howardena Pindell, printmaking with Anthony Peter Gorny, and papermaking with Karen Stahlecker.

She is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Rillito River Project in Tucson, Arizona. Trained as an artist, landscape architect and city planner, Ms. Benjoya
Skotheim conceived the Rillito River Project to draw artistic attention to global climate changes as it affects the vanishing rivers of the Southwestern United States. The rustic beauty of the dry Rillito Riverbed, contrast against the Santa Catalina Mountains, was the stage for collaborative artistic adventures. The series of artistic events installed or performed in the riverbed are documented with photography, video and prose.

A Personal Odyssey from Maimonides to Benjoya bridges the gap between art and life, the ancestral and the contemporary. Ms. Benjoya Skotheim’s work combines prints, artist books and textiles to examine her family’s history. Sephardic Jews who left Spain during the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 and migrated to the Ottoman Empire where they remained until the beginning of World War I. Then the family emigrated to Cuba, South America and the United States. Using a personal lens these works focus on a 500 year period of history. The show A Personal Odyssey from Maimonides to Benjoya traveled to NYC, Palo Alto, Los Angeles and Tucson.
Ellen Skotheim

Exhibitions and Performances

2021 ACCI Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2013 Cultural Contemporaneo, Rillito River Project, Montevideo, Uruguay
2012 University of Arizona, Biosphere 2, Rillito River Project, Art Lab, Oracle, AZ
2012 Rillito River Project, Bat Night, Welcome Back the Bats Tucson, AZ
2012 University of Arizona, Biosphere 2, Rillito River Project, Art Lab, Oracle, AZ
2012 University of Arizona, Art Museum, Rillito River Project, Tucson, AZ
2012 Rillito River Project, Bat Night, The Future in a Sandbox, Tucson, AZ
2011 University of Arizona, biosphere 2, Rillito River Project, Art Lab, Oracle, AZ
2011 National Performance Network, Tampa, Florida
2010 Obsidian Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2010 Morton Residence, Water Table photography exhibit, Tucson, AZ
2009 Rillito River Project, Bat Night, Water Table, Tucson, AZ
2009 Morton Residence, Elemental Flow recital, Tucson, AZ
2008 Kaye Residence, Elemental Flow Album release, Park Ave., NYC
2008 Elle Restaurant, Elemental Flow Album release,Tucson, AZ
2007 Kaye Residence, Rillito River Project, Tucson, AZ
2007 Rillito River Project, Bat Night, Elemental Flow, Tucson AZ
2007 Rillito River Project, Fishing from the Bridge, Tucson AZ
2002 The American Turkish Association and Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
2002 Yeshiva University Museum, NYC
2002 The American Turkish Association, Los Angeles, CA
2000 Dammon residence Ivri Nasawi, NYC
2000 JCC Gallery, Tucson, AZ
1999 Broadway Gallery, NYC
1998 Center for Jewish History in NYC
1998 University of Arizona, Mimesis Printmakers
1997 The Norwegian Seamen’s Church Gallery, San Pedro, CA

1996 The Norwegian Trade Council, NYC
1996 The University of Arizona Gallery, Tucson, AZ
1995 Norwegian Seamen’s Church Gallery, NYC