The British artist Ellie Walker answered a couple of our questions in the lead-up to a group exhibition As We Read at RHODES, opening in June.
Your paintings balance structure with spontaneity. How do you negotiate that tension while working?
It’s definitely a conversation between the two. I think if there’s too much structure, a painting can feel overly controlled, but without enough structure it can become overwhelming. So I’m constantly searching for an anchor within the work. This usually comes through in drawn lines, using pencil or oil stick, or blocks of spikey shapes and marks that recur across my paintings or the stitched line in some of the works. These elements act almost like objects or rails to hold onto, guiding me as I make decisions, but also working as these spaces in the work where you can pause and breathe.
When the work feels too safe or not pushed far enough, I’ll often make drastic, impulsive decisions that I’m not too sure are going to work out. I’ll introduce bold marks, shifting the colour dramatically, or ripping a painting to reuse with something else, just doing something I know will initially create formal problems. I do this because I know the work is not there yet and could be taken further, so this act of destruction or risk helps me to not stay in my comfort zone and puts me in unknown territory.
I often refer to these as my “fuck it up” stages. It requires the courage to risk losing something, in order to push the painting further, learn something new, and allow the work to surprise me. I have to take it to that edge, to discover what it can become, but I have recently been learning that restraint is also a form of courage and confidence, it’s just an on-going lesson in learning when to leave a work and when to keep going, which I think will be a forever problem to work with.
How does scale influence the way you approach a painting?
With smaller works, I’m often sitting on the floor, approaching them almost like drawings, which I do with the bigger works too, but I feel I can really get in there with the smaller works. They feel more intimate, there’s less surface area to contend with, so I can get fully absorbed. There’s also less at stake in terms of time and materials, which makes it easier for me to be more instinctive and responsive to intuition without worrying too much about an outcome or wasted time etc.
With larger paintings, there’s simply more to negotiate. The same approach doesn’t always translate, and the process can feel more like a battle. I experience less flow and more resistance, almost like an ongoing argument between myself and the materials. There’s a lot more time spent looking, pausing, and not knowing what to do next, which can be frustrating.
Smaller works need immediacy, if I spend too long on them, they can become overworked and suffocated, and the first marks often carry the most energy. Larger works, on the other hand, can sit for weeks or even months. They allow for longer periods of uncertainty, followed by moments of clarity where something shifts, and the painting re-emerges.
Layering seems central to your process. How does building up the surface shape the final work?
There are many failed or unresolved compositions beneath the surfaces of some of my paintings. It often feels like each work lives through multiple lives before I reach a point where I can leave it alone. While the finished pieces may appear immediate, they take months, built through layers of paint, drying time, and moments of waiting until I sense what to do next. More often than not, I act impulsively, making a move that can take the work 10 steps back. That, in turn, requires more time to sit, dry, and be reworked.
The paintings are records of these impulsive decisions and failures, leaving traces through the texture or peaks of colours from previous layers underneath. It’s a frustrating process of trying to listen to what the work wants to be rather than me trying to control it and what I want it to be. I often feel anxious and frustrated while making, as there’s a lot of not knowing, like how materials will react, how colours will sit together, or how different tools will shift the surface. All this shapes how the layers accumulate in the final work.
At times, the process can be minimal, a single wash of colour and a direct mark which can sometimes feel complete and will later be used in a stitched piece. But more often, I find myself navigating a fine line between trusting the work enough to leave it, and pushing further because I sense there is something still unresolved or more to be found. My curiosity often wins out, and I continue to return to the surface, reworking and transforming it, but I am currently questioning this need in my practice vs the need for restraint and directness.
When starting a new work, do you begin with a plan or let the painting evolve as you go?
I never begin with a plan, maybe I should, it might make the process go smoother but then I think the bumps along the way make for more interesting things to happen within the work. I do have drawings that I look to, not to copy but just for reference or even to allow them to seep into my subconscious when I’m painting, in which some shapes or marks will show up in the work. I was previously going straight into the painting before and became very lost and frustrated. Sometimes having no plan works, but most of the time, I have my drawings up on the wall and just look to them if I get stuck and unsure of what mark or colour or shape to make next.
You use very distinctive colours in your work. How do your colour choices develop during the process?
I have colours that I re-use and are my favourites such as deep cadmium red, dusty Guston pinks, dusty mauves, translucent reddish browns, a yellowish clotted cream colour and sap green. I usually start with a base colour and then decide on the spot what I will use next and it kind of goes on from that to the next like a conversation. There will be times I mix it up, add in new shades or new colours and then I will keep adjusting until I get to a palette I think works and sometimes this does mean wiping off a colour completely or covering it up with something else. It is very instinctive and maybe intuitive, I’ll be sitting there looking and thinking of what needs to be done next, what does the painting want and sometimes it will take a while, I also have to turn all my other paintings around to not influence the work I’m working on or distract me. It’s usually when I’m doing something else and just glance, not thinking about it too much that the knowing of what colour it needs next comes to me.
What kind of experience do you hope people have when viewing your work?
I try to not think about the viewer when making the work as I probably wouldn’t make anything if I did, however I have had experiences with other artists work that has been visceral and has given me such an urge to get to my studio to paint, that I guess I would hope it creates some sort of physical sensation for someone who sees my work or even just sparking curiosity. I really make work to process a lot of my own energy, so they hold a lot of my emotional history as well as material history, so I would hope it just ignites a feeling, whether good or bad at least it’s done something beyond what it’s done for me.
You utilise multiple mediums in your work, such as stitching. What does this add to your pieces?
The stitching has become another process-based way of working for me. It allows me to piece different temporal moments I’ve had when making the work, which further fragments the outcome, allowing for contrasting moments and juxtaposition between different textures and mark making.
I also think it adds another layer of tactility and an imperfect drawing element to the work. I have a consistent theme of lines, either through pencil marks, oil sticks or paint itself and I feel the stitching is another line element which adds that structure I desire within the work, but also acts as a guiding point for the viewer.
There’s still the same amount of frustration I face with this process as I get when I am purely painting, which happens when sewn pieces don’t work together. I have to then unpick the canvas from the frame, rip it apart and start again. This leaves visible traces of thread and imperfection, which gives it a sense of vulnerability and history. It’s very physically demanding and requires a lot of doing, undoing, risk, and surrendering to control but whilst controlling it still. Control and letting go is an area I am constantly working in and questioning.
Ellie Walker will feature in an upcoming group exhibition at RHODES, email us for more details.
