Elise is a young, up-and-coming artist who lives and paints in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. Since graduating from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2008, her work has been receiving very enthusiastic responses from art-lovers and the media alike, with The Herald stating that Elise is "a young and celebrated artist", and she intends to keep raising the bar of expectation as her skills develop.
Elise was one of six winners at the Brit Art Stars competition held at the SaLon Gallery in London, in which over a staggering two thousand graduating students' works were judged. This gave her significantly more public recognition, which in turn lead to more exhibitions of her latest works.
"My work is all about people and the relationships formed between them.
"The initial scene that the viewer interprets from the painting may differ over time after further analysis as they look closer at the actual interaction of individual figures, not just the image as a whole. I aim to try and provoke an inquisitive reaction from the observer and allow them to formulate an opinion of their own to the events that occur in the paintings. For instance, regarding the painting Don't Look Now, an individual I spoke to got the impression that the painting was about a group of friends trying to get into a night-club, and yet another informed me they read it as a group of strangers running away from a riot.
"Many of the scenes are deliberately ambiguous in their interpretation, as I am interested in seeing how different people look at them in different ways. Since the figures are important within my work I try not to overcomplicate the background by putting the majority of attention on the foreground. But I have discovered over time that the subtlety and emptiness within the backdrop can actually raise some very interesting questions and provoke the viewer's train of thought further."
