I am a proudly self-taught queer outsider artist specialising in abstract painting. My art practice is deeply connected to my spiritual life. My work is very process driven and it is informed by loose, casual observations of my immediate environment and also my inner world. The technique I most often use explores the tension between control and happy accident. I build up many thin layers using several different mark-making techniques and then scrape off some of the paint, adding and subtracting until I am satisfied. One of the main themes is vulnerability and the ephemeral. I’m also interested in the materiality and what I can achieve with the paint and other products. My recent Skins series was developed through a period of experimental development.
In 2022, my work hurtled into abstraction from a floral drip technique which I had developed over several years. The shift came after some huge life-changing events. I felt that I myself had become completely decontructed in order to start fresh. And so in turn, my painting practice also had to be deconstructed. At first there was a very excitable energy with my new abstract practice. As I settle into it, there is now a softness appearing in my newest work, which I am curious to lean into further.
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Ellen van de Graaf 