I'm Ellie Cottrell, a drawer based in Cheltenham, working in oil pastel on paper. 

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My work explores multiplicities and dualities; human interaction, its necessary vulnerabilities and our interconnection with our surroundings – the real and the not so much.

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Rather than a portrait, figures and their interaction with nature convey a feeling or idea, a self-portrait of someone else, rather than a rendering of another life. People and environments are built of layers that the paper breathes through; they live comfortably with unease and tension.

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I am deeply interested in multitudes. Through the work, I am investigating how we interact with our own anxieties and the countervailing feelings of constraint and support, overwhelm and creation. Each series contains aspects of this exploration into plurality, how people, experiences, spaces can be seen from multiple ways at once.

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I am exploring dreams or conversations with mundanity.

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The work does not shout; it can be very quiet.