STATEMENT

Ellie Cottrell, a drawer based in Cheltenham.

Although doing an Art Foundation in 2008 I went on to study graphic design and didn't return to a drawing practice until a short time ago.

Currently working in oil pastel on paper exploring the figure and natural forms. Through the current work I play with themes of human interaction, its necessary vulnerabilities and representation of thoughts, repeatedly through the interference of nature. Drawn from owned photographs or modified found imagery; rather than a portrait, figures and their interaction with their surroundings mean to convey a feeling or idea. Although they aim to be “beautiful” they can also incite a sense of unease and tension.

Some works look at the monumentality of of women, their representation subjectivity in the world, others are simply my conversation with mundanity. The Rites of Spring is a series inspired by Pina Bausch’s version of the ballet, a story of ritual where a woman is chosen to dance herself to death. She asks us ”How would you dance if you knew you were going to die?” These works use stills from the ballet to think about ritual, collective expression and connection with the earth in brief, fleeting moment of dance.

Much of my work centers on explorations of the inside of our minds, expressing how we interact with our own anxieties and countervailing feelings of constraint and support, overwhelm and creation, multiplicity and duality. These themes reappear in my thinking through all series.