Shona Elrick’s paintings are concerned with how mark-making and colour can express an experience or moment in a landscape. Growing up in rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland, gifted her with a profound emotional connection to landscape, with an enduring sense of wonder and awe for the ever-changing drama of the big open skies and the interplay of colour and patterns.
Shona explores the authenticity of mark-making and the power of colour to communicate her response and relationship to a particular landscape, layering oil paint, collage and mother mixed media to create a balance of spontaneous and grounded marks.
Collage plays a significant role in the feeling and composition of her work: employing her unique brand of oil-on-newsprint collage - a by-product of cleaning brushes. She ‘plays’ with both the spontaneous quality of the brush marks, and the underlying structure of the newsprint, articulating planes and creating depth. Shona invites the viewer to look closer, exposing arbitrary text, creating “synchronicity and poetry” within a painting.
‘Paintsongs of the Wild’ includes works mainly from her ‘North Sea Series’, ‘Hampstead Heath Series’ and her recent series of small works titled ‘///what3words’*. *
The ‘///what3words’ series was borne out of a collaboration exhibition with The Riverside Artists Group in which she collaborates with the App -///what3words (this App identifies any 3m location on Earth using 3 words). She uses locations familiar and dear to her, using either the actual word, or an expression of the word in imagery.
Artist bio
Shona Elrick grew up in the open rolling farmland of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is was in this setting that nurtured a deep-rooted and passionate bond to landscape. She studied Fine Art at Gray!s School of Art, Aberdeen. During her studies her work was selected to be exhibited at The Scottish Royal Academy and Aberdeen Art Gallery.
Soon after graduating Shona moved to London, and soon began a degree in ceramics at Middlesex University - just to clarify her true love was painting! Shona Elrick has exhibited mainly in London: including a joint exhibition with Ceramist Sue Paraskeva at the Hiefer Gallery. She regularly exhibits via ArtWest Open Studios and The Riverside Artists Group. Earlier this year she exhibited works with the Royal Watercolour Society Open at Bankside Gallery, and with artworks The Roberts Phillips Gallery, Walton-upon-Thames. She works p/t as an Art Psychotherapist.
Follow:
Instagram: @shonaelrickart