Bored Panda reached out to Ellen to find out a little bit more about her and her work.
"You might think that I represent the character behind my photos—that might be a total misunderstanding, this is not who I am, guys. My art is about the associations that are created unconsciously in people's minds when they are experiencing something or overwhelmed by some emotions like fear and love, amusement and deep sorrow.
My art covers the most sensitive issues like bullying, self-acceptance, body positivity, I would even say my heart is bleeding when kids, children or media people are suffering from bullying.The topic of bullying is silenced in media and is normally substituted by focusing on other things: the impact of the family, education. Nevertheless, we can't deny the toxic impact of the media on the lives of ordinary and even the most influential people. Ageism, racial discrimination, and sexism are the issues that are too controversial to admit but they exist and the blatant truth is: IT AFFECTS US AND WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
By combining my story, my photos, and my paintings, you can OBVIOUSLY see that the main stylistic features are surrealism and impressionism, applying the transformative power of virtual reality. I think I could define my unique style as SURVIRTUALISM."
We asked Ellen for how long she has been doing art.
"All my life, for over 25 years, I was growing up within the art atmosphere in general. My favorite tool to create art was my own hands—even in my own imagination. My hands were sculpting or molding plastic or clay figures, painted albums, cut-out collages from old magazines, drawing paintings with metal nails on the wall just because felt-tip pens are boring.
When photography became my true passion, digital editing emboldened my paintings... But I was ashamed and too humble to admit that this is art. Listen to how weird it sounds: I really allowed myself to call myself 'an artist.' I was tired of it, I was sick.
And now I'm proud to call myself a modern artist. On January 1 (the first), 2019, Ellen ceased to label me, my art (like an influencer, a savage, bold, provocative artist, blogger); she has just begun to express herself artistically in oil painting, fulfilling her long-standing dream, and she will have a personal show in Tokyo."
We also asked the talented artist about her opinion on performative art.
"Performative art is an open door between a spectator and an artist. People like to look at the creative process because they feel like they are participants in this process. When I learned about performance in art, it was shaking my ground, it blew me away. It changed my mind completely about certain things.
Social networks are like virtual galleries, which means that I am a performer since the moment of registering my profile. My YouTube channel shows a movie of the image, and Instagram is a 'still space' where viewers see the final image. And this means that the canvas becomes a picture or a piece of clay turns into a living sculpture only at the moment when the viewer is looking at the work because the feature of performative art is a process of bundling the creativity of the author with his performance."
At last, we wanted to find out a little bit more about Ellen's inspiration.
The work of contemporary artists, anime, and a large amount of visual information on the internet influenced my style and shaped some ideas. I took a lot of inspiration from certain things.
I always have a dialogue with my creative child who is free-spirited, open-minded to the outer world, and is playing mindlessly with shapes and colors or with information. As my viewers can associate certain things with me, I'm trying to observe the world in search of these associations. I always advise young artists to just look around themselves and express themselves in the art form.
For example, watermelon animals. When I greedily ate a watermelon, it reminded me that I was a wild animal that caught prey. Or every time I put on some clothes, it seems to me that I am feeding myself to a big python. Such love games with my own imagination create like a child (whose name is) 'Inspiration.'"
