Ella Carty

‘Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes’ – Walt Whitman

I have always wanted to say this out loud.

I am a painter who investigates my own experiences of the world.

I want to show the odd quirks of the human mind. I am interested in the task of representing emotion and making images out of feelings. This is an instinctive, experimental process, reacting to what happens during the making of the piece.

I am interested in:

Describing a process of perception, discovery and regeneration.

Spitting out paint and matter as I go along. A messy and rewarding process and something that keeps me endlessly satisfied.

Creating layers of associations from scavenged sources.

A slurry of art history, of physical landscape and emotional encounters and all the fictions I have constructed in between, especially the fictions I suppose.

I like the idea of other possibilities underneath layers of paint.

Liquid pools of cobalt blue stubbed out by crimson or layers of spectre grey. In this sense I come from a long line of painters obsessed with paint itself. Its smeariness and smell seduces me.

I rarely have a plan. I want to be surprised.

I studied Art Foundation at St. Albans College of Art and then went to Cheltenham College of Art to study BA(Hons) Fine art: Painting. I have been a practicing artist since leaving University, living and working in Oxford, London, Hertfordshire and Cornwall.

Find out more about past exhibitions and approach here.