THIRD PLACE WINNER - Fine Art: Landscapes (PROFESSIONAL)
Stars

Photo © Ellie Davies
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Stars, 2014-2015. New Forest, UK.
Stars, 2014-2015 explores my desire to find some balance between a relationship with the wild places of my youth and a pervasive sense of disconnectedness from the natural world.
The Western landscape tradition embodies a pairing that James Elkins calls ‘the subject-object relationship’. Typified by the ‘scenic viewpoint’ or tourist panoramic overlook, we gaze, often through binoculars or telescopes, at wide vistas and dramatic seascapes, and are awed and overwhelmed. But this landscape experience often alienates the viewer from the scene and, just as the landscape itself becomes an object, a separation arises between them.
Today, the majority of people live in urban or semi-urban environments, experiencing the landscape from a distanced position mediated through technology and various media. From this viewpoint the notion of the landscape in all its sensuous materiality, our being within it rather than outside it, seems beyond reach.
Stars, 2014-2015 addresses this distancing by drawing the viewer right into the heart of a forest which still holds mystery, and offers the potential for discovery and exploration. The series considers the fragility of our relationship with the natural world, and the temporal and finite nature of landscape as a human construct.
Mature and ancient forest landscapes are interposed with images captured by the Hubble Telescope of the Milky Way, Omega Centauri, the Norma Galaxy and embryonic stars in the Nebula NGC 346. Each image links forest landscapes with the intangible and unknown universe, creating a juxtaposition that reflects my personal experiences of the forest—its physicality and tactility set against a profound and fundamental otherness, an alienation that separates us from a truly immersive relationship with the natural world.
(Source material credit: STScI/Hubble and NASA.)
Davies is represented by Susan Spiritus Gallery in Newport Beach, California, A.Galerie in Paris, Sophie Maree Gallery in The Netherlands, Brucie Collections in Kiev, Art Gemini in Singapore and Crane Kalman Brighton Gallery in the UK.
Recent exhibitions include Her Feet Planted Firmly on the Ground at The Houston Center of Photography in Texas from 3 March 2017 and a solo exhibition entitled Into the Woods at The Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre in Northern Ireland in April 2017.
She was selected Landscape Winner in PDN’s The Curator Awards 2016. The six winning artists were exhibited at Foley Gallery in New York in 2016. Her Stars series was selected for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2016 and received The People Choice Award.
Other solo exhibitions include Into the Woods at The Richard Young Gallery in London (2012), Come with Me at The Print House Gallery in London (2012), Smoke and Mirrors at 10GS London (2011), and Ellie Davies New Landscape at Bruce Collections, Kiev in Ukraine (2011). Group exhibitions include The Art Gemini Prize Exhibition at TriSpace Gallery in London, Uncertain States at Four Corners Gallery in London, and The Open West 2014 at The Wilson Gallery in Cheltenham.
Her work has been featured in Interior Design Magazine USA, Aesthetica Magazine, FOTO, Blow Magazine, Dodho, Doc! Magazine, Fraction Magazine’s 50th Issue, Lumina Journal, Bear Deluxe, Fuzion Magazine, La Republica Italy, Dazed and Confused, Photo+ Magazine South Korea, Conscientious, Silvershotz, Lens Culture, Art Ukraine, Entitle Magazine, Le Monde Magazine, and The London Independent Photography Selected Artist Showcase.
Her work has been exhibited extensively and collected worldwide.
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Stars, 2014-2015. New Forest, UK.
Stars, 2014-2015 explores my desire to find some balance between a relationship with the wild places of my youth and a pervasive sense of disconnectedness from the natural world.
The Western landscape tradition embodies a pairing that James Elkins calls ‘the subject-object relationship’. Typified by the ‘scenic viewpoint’ or tourist panoramic overlook, we gaze, often through binoculars or telescopes, at wide vistas and dramatic seascapes, and are awed and overwhelmed. But this landscape experience often alienates the viewer from the scene and, just as the landscape itself becomes an object, a separation arises between them.
Today, the majority of people live in urban or semi-urban environments, experiencing the landscape from a distanced position mediated through technology and various media. From this viewpoint the notion of the landscape in all its sensuous materiality, our being within it rather than outside it, seems beyond reach.
Stars, 2014-2015 addresses this distancing by drawing the viewer right into the heart of a forest which still holds mystery, and offers the potential for discovery and exploration. The series considers the fragility of our relationship with the natural world, and the temporal and finite nature of landscape as a human construct.
Mature and ancient forest landscapes are interposed with images captured by the Hubble Telescope of the Milky Way, Omega Centauri, the Norma Galaxy and embryonic stars in the Nebula NGC 346. Each image links forest landscapes with the intangible and unknown universe, creating a juxtaposition that reflects my personal experiences of the forest—its physicality and tactility set against a profound and fundamental otherness, an alienation that separates us from a truly immersive relationship with the natural world.
(Source material credit: STScI/Hubble and NASA.)
About author:
Ellie Davies (Born 1976) lives in Dorset and works in the woods and forests of Southern England. She gained her MA in Photography from London College of Communication in 2008.Davies is represented by Susan Spiritus Gallery in Newport Beach, California, A.Galerie in Paris, Sophie Maree Gallery in The Netherlands, Brucie Collections in Kiev, Art Gemini in Singapore and Crane Kalman Brighton Gallery in the UK.
Recent exhibitions include Her Feet Planted Firmly on the Ground at The Houston Center of Photography in Texas from 3 March 2017 and a solo exhibition entitled Into the Woods at The Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre in Northern Ireland in April 2017.
She was selected Landscape Winner in PDN’s The Curator Awards 2016. The six winning artists were exhibited at Foley Gallery in New York in 2016. Her Stars series was selected for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2016 and received The People Choice Award.
Other solo exhibitions include Into the Woods at The Richard Young Gallery in London (2012), Come with Me at The Print House Gallery in London (2012), Smoke and Mirrors at 10GS London (2011), and Ellie Davies New Landscape at Bruce Collections, Kiev in Ukraine (2011). Group exhibitions include The Art Gemini Prize Exhibition at TriSpace Gallery in London, Uncertain States at Four Corners Gallery in London, and The Open West 2014 at The Wilson Gallery in Cheltenham.
Her work has been featured in Interior Design Magazine USA, Aesthetica Magazine, FOTO, Blow Magazine, Dodho, Doc! Magazine, Fraction Magazine’s 50th Issue, Lumina Journal, Bear Deluxe, Fuzion Magazine, La Republica Italy, Dazed and Confused, Photo+ Magazine South Korea, Conscientious, Silvershotz, Lens Culture, Art Ukraine, Entitle Magazine, Le Monde Magazine, and The London Independent Photography Selected Artist Showcase.
Her work has been exhibited extensively and collected worldwide.
BACK TO GALLERY