Cathy Ellis
Camarillo, CA
Website
www.cathyellisprojects.com
Social Media
Instagram
How would you describe your work?
My work lives somewhere between figuration and abstraction. I’m interested in queer intimacy and landscape, in how bodies and places can blur into each other through paint. The figures are all based on my partner and I, but they’re not portraits. They’re more like presences, individual moments, and reminders.
What inspires you?
Everyday experience: being near water, lying in the sun, moments of quiet, closeness, or sex. Memory plays a big role for me, especially how it changes color, shape, and feeling over time. I’m also really inspired by the physical act of painting itself and by letting the material lead the way.
Can you talk about your process?
My process is intuitive and layered. I usually start with a group of photographs I’ve taken that attract my eye. I paint from them as reference very quickly at first and often flat on a table so the paint pools as it dries rather than dripping with gravity. I like leaving traces of that process: the liquid paint, the edits, the uncertainty. It gives the paintings a feeling of being lived-in that I try to maintain as I finish them.
How did you become interested in art?
I took a community college drawing course at San Francisco City College. I was in my early 20’s and having a hard time in my life, I needed an outlet for emotions that I didn’t have a clear language for yet. It took me a while after that to understand what I was up to and take it more seriously as a career.
Any favorite artists, films, or books?
Jeff Wall was the first artist whose work and writing I fell in love with as a younger person. I’m also drawn to painters who work with a lot of looseness in combination with emotional depth, Marlene Dumas, Mamma Andersson, Fairfield Porter, Bay Area Figurative Painters, especially Elmer Bischoff and David Park. My favorite book is a hard one, but I’ve really admired author Tan Twan Eng lately. A lot of my studio inspiration comes from the music I listen to while I work: Neko Case, The Magnetic Fields, Agnes Obel, Joy Division, Calexico, Pavement, Sinead O’Connor, REM, Cindi Lauper, Cowboy Junkies, Spoon, The New Pornographers, that list goes on and on.
Do you have any advice for younger artists?
A life changing book that I was gifted as a young artist was Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking By David Bayles and Ted Orland.
