Ellen Witsen Elias

Amsterdam 1963My paintings are a blend of the familiar and unfamiliar. They are figurative and focus on the use of colour. Ghostlike figures occupy poses in a relaxed and familiar family tableau. But their relationship to each other is not one of easy familiarity. Rather, a strange distance separates them or is implied through a quasi-transparent barrier. The implication is one of being isolated even in the most intimate of domestic settings. Hints of a closeness at great distance are of great importance in my paintings.

1982-1989 Art History VU Amsterdam, thesis on art criticism in the 19th century1999-2003 Wackers Academy, painting,