I aim to visually intersect various themes in my artistic practice: natural environments, mental spaces, memory archives, and the human body. Through “Paradise Island” I invite viewers to consider their own unique relationships within these themes.

A particular example of this would be the placement made between the artwork entitled “Ephemeral Tendencies” and the installation “Decisive Traces”. If you look at “Decisive Traces” straight on, the artwork “Ephemeral Tendencies” fits within the centre point on the fabric. I wanted this placement to open up the potential of discovery for viewers, encouraging them to seek relationships between artworks with imagination and movement throughout the exhibition. This parallels the exciting potential in humanity’s drive to discover subjective narratives.

The artworks suggest a space somewhere between psychological and physical, a membrane between the physical world and the imaginative (imagine, if you will, an isolated "Paradise Island"). I hope that the artworks in this exhibition encourage us to reflect on the spaces where memories and extensions of ourselves reside.

Artworks Included:

"Decisive Traces" (installation), "Paradise Island" (bubble figure in dark blue light), "Pandemania" (bubble figure in purple-ish light), "Ephemeral Tendencies" (naked figure with enshrouded head), "Now is the Hour" (two bubble figures). 

Paradise Island 

The "Steeping" series is an ongoing photographic exploration of the fluctuating relationship between human integration and estrangement from natural environments. The photoshopped images I make visually intersect natural spaces, digital realms, memory archives, and the human body.  I am interested in representing the human body in a more abstract or anonymous way, to make room for the viewer to consider their own individual relationships with environment.

Steeping

Subliminal is an ongoing series that I started in 2013 and have recently returned to. The term “Subliminal” can be understood as a mental process that subconsciously exists, a perception that is there without our being aware of it. This series is a visualization on how we potentially shape and understand ourselves through subliminal interpretations of what we are exposed to. It also explores the shifting relationship between the dissonant sensations of dissociation and immersion from physicality. 

The newest image entitled “Between Suns” (depicts shapes in a field and a moon shape in the sky) marks my recent return to this series. I chose to represent the human body in a more abstract way here, in efforts to communicate how subliminal processing can potentially form and shape us. 

Artworks depicted: 

"Subliminal I" 
"Subliminal II" 
"Between Suns" 

Subliminal

The photoshopped images I make visually intersect various realms, inviting the viewer to consider our interdependent existence with different spaces. “Homebound” considers this in relation to mental and natural spaces, particularly in the wake of the pandemic lockdown restrictions. Shown as part of Verzasca photo festivals 2020 “Of Men and Woods”, “Homebound” was exhibited in the forests of Verzasca Valley from September 05-November 05, 2020.

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Elly Heise