Behind The Haunting Paintings Of Melbourne Artist Ella Dunn

Ella Dunn’s figurative paintings are influenced by private activities. She derives narratives from individuals, interactions, places and domestic scenes – there’s no telling the place or when she may well get a spark of inspiration. 

‘I am usually drawing,’ she clarifies. ‘That informs my paintings. My drawing notebooks arrive with me all over the place. I generally write down moments that I have professional or that have caught my notice and have stayed with me in some way. As the drawings, sketches and text make, I begin to acquire a unfastened, fragmented narrative that drives the functions.’ 

Most lately, a instant among two little ones at kindergarten, where by Ella (an Early Childhood Trainer in schooling) was on placement, established in movement the thought for her most up-to-date human body of do the job on shadows.

‘I was pushing two kids on the swing when a single stated “look down!”. Their shadows were dancing up and back again alongside the ground. The child explained, “look, I’m touching my shadow, no it is touching me”, as they arrived at down to the ground,’ she describes. 

This instant drew Ella’s consideration to the lots of ways in which shadows shift and morph, dependent on how you view them. 

‘Looking about, I turned aware of the diverse rhythms and strategies shadows shown them selves. I seen my shadow subsequent me, becoming there as organization, so I started documenting my shadow on distinctive surfaces,’ she claims. 

Her favorite piece in the new collection, ‘I contact my shadow, no my shadow touches me’, is a nod to this minute of conception. 

Painting wasn’t generally Ella’s picked out medium. The artist moved from the mid-North coastline in New South Wales to Melbourne in 2013 to study great arts at VCA in drawing and printmaking. But, when a housemate’s close friend gave her an aged suitcase comprehensive of oil paints, she realised she had observed her content area. 

‘I thought I may as perfectly give them a go,’ she suggests. ‘Since then I have liked the medium of paint and its unpredictability.’ 

She does not have a consistent method she follows, as an alternative she allows instinct to tutorial the approach (which generally involves making use of layers of paint, eliminating it and portray above it once again).

‘Even if I commence out with an idea, I in no way know where by I am heading to conclude up,’ she states. ‘And that is the attractiveness of paint.’