Ellary Eddy

Never content in one mode of artistic enterprise, my trajectory as a visual artist has spanned a variety of media: photography, painting, design, and film. Happily, I find that each foray spawns the next. The guiding element that propels me is an almost constant state of enthusiasm.

The most consistent theme in my work is the relationship of man to nature, a problematic one at best, as on the one hand we idealize nature and on the other debase it. I have worked with dogs, polar bears, taxidermy, and the occasional human to explore the ramifications of this often dysfunctional bond.

I employ seemingly diametrically opposed approaches in this pursuit - the lyrical and the comedic… but that's how I view life in general ~ as both wildly beautiful and wonderfully absurd.

When, 20 years ago, I first started my series of underwater bears, (snappily titled “Ursine, Polar and Subaqueous”:) I saw them as the proverbial Canaries in the Coal Mine. I did have a political purpose in painting them, but a stronger drive was the desire to explore the abstract beauty of these beasts in their element - to capture their joy - and by so doing demonstrate the tragedy of their conceivable doom.

But I get restless with realism, hence a puck...

School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston