Eiden Spilker (b. ‘96) is a Providence, RI-based artist and craftsperson. He works at the Brown Design Workshop as the ‘Maker in Residence’ where he strives to strengthen collective craft knowledge through individual mentorship, group workshops, and community outreach. Before starting the residency, Eiden graduated from Brown University in 2024 with degrees in Architecture (honors) and Visual Arts. It was in school where he developed his love for woodworking, primarily using scraps and offcuts scavenged or sourced from friends in local workshops. Through working with reclaimed materials, he began to center his practice around ‘material memory’ – the historic testimony of objects which expands the reified, static object into a dynamic process of relations that stretches beyond the immediate image or utility of the finalized object. This concept became the central focus in his senior thesis titled: ‘Recovering Aura: The Handmade Object in the Age of AI.’
At the beginning of his residency, Eiden was fortunate to become the steward of a 120-year-old American Elm that was cut down on Brown’s Main Green. Working with this tree began to ground the abstract concept of material memory with a specific history, rather than the impersonal one derived from miscellaneous lumber. With this “charged” material, Eiden developed a body of work that eventually became his first solo show as a working artist, titled ‘Between Past and Future’, which examined the broader shape and direction of history that we place this material into. With the majority of the Elm, Eiden is now in the process of curating ‘Point of Entry,’ a Spring ’26 group show. The intent of this exhibition is to facilitate community access to this material – considering it as a common ground, an entry point into the multiplicity of perspectives that bridges the gap between the public and private sphere.
Education
2020-2024 AB in Architecture (Honors), AB in Visual Arts, Brown University, Providence, RI
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025 Between Past and Future, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Providence, RI
2024 objects in flux : (a)social relations, LIST Art Building, Providence, RI
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 Spring Art Show, The 1910 Gallery, Queens, NY
2024 Mixotricha: Death of the Author, Fugitive Projects, Providence, RI
2024 Senior Showcase, LIST Art Building, Providence, RI
2024 44th Annual Student Juried Exhibition, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Providence, RI
Juried by Jessica Brown and Sháńdíín Brown
2024 Third Biennial College Exhibition, Providence Art Club, Providence RI
2023 The Color Red, LIST Art Building, Providence, RI
2023 Thought to Form, LIST Art Building, Providence, RI
2023 Group Show, Public Shop & Gallery, Providence, RI
2023 Rising Senior Exhibition, LIST Art Building, Providence, RI
2023 43rd Annual Student Juried Exhibition, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Providence, RI
Juried by Lani Asunción and Xander Marro
2023 Eco-brutalist Reverberations, Salon 149, Providence, RI
Awards
2024 Honorable Mention, 44th Annual Student Juried Exhibition, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Providence, RI
Juried by Jessica Brown and Sháńdíín Brown
2023 Flexible Flyer Fellowship Award, Brown University Visual Arts Department, Providence RI
2023 BAI Student Grant, Brown Arts Institute, Providence RI
2023 Marlene Malik Fellowship Award, Brown University Visual Arts Department, Providence RI
2023 2nd Place, 43rd Annual Student Juried Exhibition, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Providence, RI
Juried by Lani Asunción and Xander Marro
2015 2nd Place - Photography, Keren Or Youth Competition, Rimon, Minneapolis, MN
Curation
2026 Point of Entry, Lindenmann Performing Arts Center, Providence, RI
Writing
2025 Against Revolutionary Aesthetics, Cathode Journal
Media
2025 Eiden Spilker '24 gives Main Green elm [...] Brown Daily Herald
2024 Honoring the Lives of Objects, Brown Arts Review