Born and raised behind the iron curtain and growing up in Western Germany, Elisabeth Ajtay is primarily working in photography. Recurring topics in her work are the notion of home and belonging, language and aspects of Western society. Her multi-facetted practice which is genre-free reflects her life as a nomad, growing up in, and constantly moving between two different systems.

Ajtay’s work is in numerous private collections. She has exhibited throughout Europe and in the US, including inSPIRACJE and Art Moves Festival in Poland, Goethe Institutes in Morocco, Prague, New York and France and Don Soker Contemporary Art in San Francisco. Museum shows include the MKK -Museum for Art and Cultural History Dortmund, Germany and Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio, Texas. She has received an honorable mention with PX3-Prix de la Photographie Paris, France. She was included into the Prequalified Artist Pool by the San Francisco Arts Commission and awarded a residency at the 3rd Street Studio Programs by San Francisco Art Institute. Most recently she was awarded an artist in residence at BANFF Center for Arts and Culture in Canada and the Vermont Studio Center. She further received two honorable mentions with the International Photography awards, one for her body of work Dialog (Dialogue).

Elisabeth Ajtay received a diploma in communications design from the University of Applied Sciences Dortmund in Dortmund, Germany and a MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, CA. She began her formal education in Budapest, Hungary, where she studied dance, painting, drawing, jewelry making, graphic design and photography with Tamás Kopasz and other contemporary Hungarian artists.