| Ellen Christiansen |
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Ellen was born in 1965 in Trinidad. She came to live in England with her mother and two brothers in 1976. She is the grand daughter of the great Arthur Christiansen. Her father, Andrew, co - founded the advertising company Christiansen & Belgrave. While at school she was encouraged by a visiting art teacher from New Zealand and went on to study art at Chelsea School of Art in 1981. This was a wide ranging course over two years where she realised her passion for sculpture. |
In 1983 at the age of 18 she went to Camberwell School of Art. At Camberwell she underwent a fairly academic training and, was greatly influenced by Brian Taylor her then personal tutor. |
Ellen has exhibited widely in London including the Barbican, Candid Arts Trust, Swiss Cottage Library, South London Art Gallery and Acme open Studios. Her work is in several private collections and she has completed several commissions including a piece commissioned by Terry Farrell Architects and another for The Earth trust. |
She has taught alongside her studio practice since 1990. Firstly with Camden Adult Education and then the University of East London.
Ellen's work reflects her deep interest in human psychology - the physicality of emotional states - when the effort to contain emotion shows in the body as posture and form. Ellen's first passion was the human figure and human portraiture. Now she has widened her gaze to include dog portraiture-both head studies and full body sculptures. Inspired by the work of Rodin, Michelangelo and Degas amongst many others, she works mainly in clay and plaster, casting into bronze and other materials.In contrast to this rather long, involved process, her drawings are as simple as it gets - charcoal on paper . Drawings which are executed very quickly in an effort to capture the energy and form of the subject, as the models often holding excruciating poses inevitably for only short periods of time. 1981 -1983: Datec Diploma Art & Design - Chelsea School of Art 1983 - 1986: BA Honors Fine Art, Sculpture - Camberwell School of Art |