Surroundings Studies III Painting

Statement: My work is about material, experimentation and process; the colors and forms are informed by my environment. Through multi-year layered paintings, cut up sketches and old work reassembled, or paintings that stop before they might be considered ‘finished’ I am interested in exploring the nature of making art and examining the idea of finality. What is truly finished? When does the experiment stop and art begin? My process is impulse and intuition; reacting to what is happening on the surface of the canvas in that moment; pools of paint moved by gravity, water soaking through a page, combined with an editing process that might be years out, or immediate and delivered by swift scissors, the moment repurposed into something else. I am seeking out exploration, test and trial, for the discovery of tiny worlds in overlapping pigments and the freedom/excitement/terror of knowing it might be cut apart tomorrow. Everything is both impermanent and permanent and my work is attempting to live in the in-between. Bio: Ellen Sherman is a visual artist living and working in Ann Arbor MI. After graduating from Michigan State University in 2008 with a BFA in Studio Art she moved to Miami Florida and helped co-found and later became Artistic Director of a small indie game studio, ChickenBrick Studios. She left the position in 2011 to focus on her art full time. Ellen and her husband moved to Ann Arbor Michigan in 2017 where she has set up her studio and small gallery space. Her work is in collections in the US, Canada, Japan, Greece, Israel and the Netherlands.