Lot 90 - Ella Shepard - All the People We Pass Through

ARTIST INFO

About

Ella Shepard is a painter, drawing on personal and collective memories to create works that deeply connect with time, flux and the instability of a moment. Moments shift, memories change, lights flicker and suddenly we are experiencing something completely altered and fragmented. Like reality, the paintings are fractal, they exist on multiple planes.

Education

Shepard studied Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University (2016) and has recently received an MA in Painting from Arts University Bournemouth (2022). Shepard currently lives and works in her studio in Bournemouth exhibiting regularly across the country and Europe.

Select Exhibitions/Awards

In 2017 Shepard worked alongside BiC pens and created pieces in collaboration with Parkinson's UK at Store Street Gallery, London. In 2018 she won the Young Bath Art Prize and her painting was chosen for the cover of Young Romances’ album, 'Don’t Look'. Shepard has been commissioned by and exhibited with Modern Art Oxford, The Arts Council and residencies have taken her to Bauhaus University and Cove Park to name a few. Shepard's work has been featured in Art and Framing Today, Wot is art?, House and Garden and Paint Britain. Shepard's work has been purchased for private collections and her paintings can be viewed as a permanent part of Oxford’s Public Art Collection. 

Awards include Jorge Aguilar-Agon National Artist Award, Bath Art Prize, Lena Fritsch’s Selection Award (The Ashmolean Museum) and The Eaton Fund.

Gallery Representation

Shepard recently had a solo exhibition at Pen Gallery titled: The Infinite Now (November 2022).

Statement about AOAP Submitted Artwork

There is a dichotomy of language and texture of poetry which moves and shapes in a way which other forms of writing cannot. Some poetry can be uncannily pertinent whilst others hazier and unclear. Painting and writing are connected by the hand, there is a scrawl of marks, a language of colloquialisms, mistakes can be made, misread and misinterpreted. There is space for nuance in this communication as nothing is fixed, like poetry the pictorial framework in the paintings is unfolding and collapsing, it is open. Choosing phrases from the poem, I picked out collections of words to explore, focusing on imagery of the elements in poetic space. Chosen phrases included; rooted in constellations, cloud of home, flaming together, fierce pure life and the lake in the eye that knows. 

Letting the words enter through the eyes, this series of paintings explores impressions and sensations, layering temporality and multiplicity of meaning in our everyday.

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