STATEMENT

I’m 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; often rather than a portrait, figures and their interaction with their surroundings mean to convey a feeling or idea.

I am currently working on several series simultaneously. An untiled series exploring ideas 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. Although they aim to be "beautiful" they can also incite a sense of unease and tension.

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?” This image uses stills from that ballet to think about ritual, collective expression and connection with the earth in brief, fleeting moment of dance.

Grass is my conversation with mundanity, I am not sure yet where it is taking me, as with all the collections, it is a thought in progress.