Artist Statement

Organic forms in nature have been a thread through Ellen Chuse’s work for decades. Spanning over 30 years, these drawings and paintings reflect her engagement with the body and landscape in ways both abstract and representational but always deeply personal. While diverse in scale and subject matter, the charcoal and chalk drawings from the 80‘s and 90‘s as well as the more recent drawings and color saturated paintings in the new millennium all spring from similar forms. Inspired by pine and shad trees from Block Island to Rome and plant forms from many places in between, the work reflects Chuse’s continuing exploration of forms in nature and the ways in which they reflect and echo one another in widely varying scale and context.