Coral Gables Gallery Night Opening: Ellen Grant

ELLEN GRANT: Nature Garage

Friday, November 3, 7-10pm

Coral Gables

Drawing, painting, and sculpting are, for me, deeply rooted in organic forms. Over the past few years, I have focused on creating textures and patterns – for example, lines that spiral, encircle, radiate, and interweave one another – using overlooked, ordinary, recycled materials. Experimenting with everything from newspaper and cardboard tubes to packaging and plastic, I transform these materials into sculptural objects; often, I make a series of small objects and arrange them in formations that become art forms in themselves.

My most recent body of work, entitled “Nature Garage”, in many ways aligns with the theme of objects overlooked in nature. Inspiration from nature is not a passive act; a moment or object may stand out as distinctive but only when we are attentive. The “Nature Garage” series emerged on walks through my neighborhood and a local arboretum where I collected organic objects – shells, seed pods, rocks, twigs and leaves – and brought them back to my garage studio to observe and record. Instead of using recycled media, I chose ink, graphite, and gouache to depict the representational forms, textures, and patterns of the objects.

-Ellen Grant, 2017

About the Artist

Ellen Grant is an Art Instructor at Ransom Everglades School where she has taught both middle and high school students in sculpture, drawing, painting, and printmaking since 1992. Ellen earned a B.F.A. in Drawing and Printmaking from the University of New Hampshire and an M.F.A. in Painting from Brooklyn College, CUNY. Upon graduation she taught art at Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut and the Churchill School in New York City and subsequently served as an Adjunct Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin and the New World School of the Arts. Her drawings, paintings, and sculptures have been exhibited in solo and group shows at the University of New Hampshire, the Paul Mellon Arts Center, Ransom Everglades School, the Converse Library, University of Miami, Center of Contemporary Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, University of Wisconsin, and the New World School of the Arts.