Today we’d like to introduce you to Ella Nilsson.
Ella, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Both my parents are artists, so It’s not super surprising that I would also head down that path. I grew up mostly in New Jersey, living in Iran for a bit as my father is Persian. Comic books were a huge influence on me, and I spent a lot of time trying to draw like Jim Lee. I followed my artistic pursuits through college, earning my Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art, and also a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice/Pre-Law, mostly so I could fact-check Law & Order. In 2004, I moved to Arizona because I was tired of shoveling snow and in 2007 I moved to Austin because I missed trees.
I had worked on commissions and smaller art projects over the years but never anything concrete or well defined. Somewhere around 2010 I started showing my work regularly and tried to find a way to create that was productive. Out of that, I discovered I work best in a series; it gives me the parameters to conceptually stay within certain self-made boundaries while being able to fully explore a subject over several works.
While the mediums and subject matter vary a bit over the years, I think the unifying element in all my work is contrast. I’m presently working on three different series, moving back and forth between all of them when the inspiration strikes. My “Sea Legs” series looks at the combining of the female figure with a variety of sea-worthy vessels, and experiments with scale and nautical themes. My “Dreams” series look at the conscious and subconscious together in one image, the visible and invisible. My “Shadows” series, affectionately nicknamed “Shady Ladies,” examines how cast shadows from hands distort across the contours of the face.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
Lately, paint has been my medium of choice, and I’ve been working in grayscale on wood. An illustrator at heart (note the comic book reference from the prior question) I find working on wood helps me treat painting more like an illustration. When you mess up a line on wood, there’s no painting it back to wood; you’re stuck with it the same way you are ink on paper. As challenging as I find those “don’t mess it up” moments, they also can be the most rewarding, and in turn, visually important to the viewer. I’m striving for simplicity in a lot of my work, and I want some of the wood “canvas” to show through when I am I completed. I love detail and can even get lost in it, so working on wood helps me not overdo it and leave some negative space.
As for messages, I prefer to leave a lot to the viewer. Its like song lyrics; you fall in love with a song and are convinced that it mirrors something you’re experiencing in your life. It validates your feelings and gives you comfort. And then you hear an interview with the artist and find out what you were certain was about heartbreak was actually about a sandwich and it ruins the song for you. I’m not out to spoil what anyone sees in my work. I’m just flattered people look and feel strongly enough to have an opinion.
With that being said, I’m totally ok with sharing the concept behind each series because that can help the viewer understand what I’m doing without giving too much away about the why. Additionally, as a general theme, I think contrast keeps coming up because I often feel misunderstood.
What do you know now that you wished you had learned earlier?
I think the biggest piece of advice is to stick with it and practice all the time. If you want to improve, never stop learning and be open to trying new things. It’s as much about the journey as it is about the output you create. Seek out opinions from other artists and don’t take it personally when you get constructive criticism. If it’s not constructive and just mean, file accordingly. It may sound cheesy, but also be yourself and be authentic; the pieces I’ve often worried I’ve “said too much” or been too literal are the pieces that people identify with the most – and see the most variety of things in!
As for technical advice, be sure to take breaks, which helps immensely; I’m a firm believer that you see something differently when you haven’t looked at it in a bit. Lots of times I hold my work in a mirror or take a picture and flip it horizontally on my phone. It helps more than you think to get a different perspective, whether literally or from another person. I still pester my mom with works in progress and ask her what’s wrong or her opinion on where I’m going. Fun fact: she recently didn’t recognize me in a self-portrait!
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
Regularly, I show some of my artwork at Austin Art Garage (austinartgarage.com) and carry prints through Skyline Art Editions (skylinearteditions.com) I exhibit every year for East Austin Studio Tour and participate in art show pop-ups with a group of badass women artists, called ATX Gals. @ATXGals
I have a website, handybitches.com, that I’m pretty terrible at updating. The name came from when my friend Shannon & I were building a deck at my old place. Dehydrated in the August heat, we had the “brilliant” idea to live stream all of our home improvement projects (it never happened, thankfully). We were thinking of what to call it and “handy bitches’ got the most laughs. The domain was available, and I promptly purchased it. The name kind of stuck, even though there’s only one of me, and yet that has kind of become my moniker. I’m better at updating my Instagram, which is @handybitches. Way less copy to write. 😉
Contact Info:
- Website: www.handybitches.com
- Email: Ella@handybitches.com
- Instagram: @handybitches
- Twitter: @handybitches
Image Credit:
Ella Nilsson
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