Lot 374 - Ella Garvey - Hold Me Fast and Fear Me Not

ARTIST INFO

About 

Ella Garvey (originally from the Isle of Man) is a painter based in London, recently graduated from Central Saint Martins. Her practice centres around the mythologizing of space and objects, using paint as a tool to play with form. Through collecting imagery spanning civilisations and styles, from ancient vessels to art nouveau design objects, she creates a visual language of recognisable symbols and forms that relate yet contradict. Stumbling upon one object and its stories leads her down the path of many more, all to be explored upon the surface of the canvas. It is a way of rearranging to pose new questions, to create poetry from the ordinary. She enjoys her work to be undefined, alluding to surrealism, symbolism and narrative, representing whilst also hiding. She emphasises a beauty that can’t be spoken, an eerie stillness inhabiting each world she imagines.⁠ 

Ella draws from a multiplicity of different sources ranging from folklore, religion and alchemical symbols to nature and art nouveau. Her aim is to create mythological lyricism and poetry from the ordinary and mundane. She compares her works to dreams: disparate objects that intertwine to form fantastical images that have emerged from the subconscious. Often her narratives are obscure, encouraging the viewer to uncover their own meanings and truths. 

Education 

Central Saint Martins 

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