Collection: Katy Ellis

I have been drawing and painting from early childhood and exhibiting my work for many years, taking inspiration from the landscape around me or returning to sketchbooks created from past travels. Graduating from fine art painting at Glasgow School of Art, I received a travel scholarship to Italy. This was such an inspiration I returned a year later, followed by travels in India, Thailand and Laos. I loved painting in situ and the feeling of freedom and adventure when I was exploring these places. I would re-live it in sketchbooks or photographs, producing further paintings…. but I started to miss it. Then I discovered I could recreate this feeling in the forests and plentiful green lanes local to me in Saffron Walden, discovering wonderful little worlds not so far away.

After my brother passed away earlier this year, I felt a need to respond to the surrounding landscape in a purer, more honest way. Usually preferring the colours and bare forms of the trees in winter without the fuss of leaves, and shying away from green, I found myself leaning into the green, wanting to explore that lushness and abundance of life…. somehow it felt very healing. I am a strong believer in spending time in nature to bring perspectives into balance and to soothe the soul in times of sadness or distress. Taking a walk has very often come to my rescue. I love also how certain places take hold of you and feel almost like a friend.

As a child, my parents loved to be in nature, exploring the landscape or wandering around gardens and my father would regularly point out details, which has stuck in my psyche. Now when I walk I always feel there is treasure to be found, be it an interesting cloud formation, an unusual feather, animal footprints, an antler or a bird puffing up its chest and singing his heart out. Finding these things makes me feel a strong connection to the landscape and a part of something bigger than ourselves, I feel it’s important to pay attention to that. When I paint it is with these experiences and feelings in mind.