ELLE
Untitled
“I am honored to have been invited by RAD Napa to create a public artwork in the city which I was born and raised. It’s incredible that Napa is embracing and supporting street art and graffiti- which is thought to be one of the most comprehensive contemporary art movements globally.”
THE ARTISTS: ELLE considers her paintings to be poetry. She creates stories by collaging disparate images: powerful females, flora and fauna, classical paintings juxtaposed with pop-culture and high fashion imagery, revealing purposefully designed messages to the world. Her work has been exhibited in the prestigious Saatchi Gallery in London, Urban Nation Museum in Berlin, and as a two-hundred-foot-tall projection onto the facade of the New Museum in New York. Vogue Australia featured ELLE’s artworks in “32 pieces of Melbourne street art to see before you die,” her graffiti is featured in the Tom Clancy video game: The Division. She has multiple collaborations with sportswear brand Reebok: the ELLE x Reebok graffiti legging and subsequently, the ELLExReebok yoga capsule collection. Her artwork has been published in over a dozen books on streetart along with hundreds of online publications and articles. “She holds specific and hard to find creative talent which cannot be taught nor replicated.” (The Taboo Group)
In 2018 ELLE was commissioned to paint a 40-meter wrap around inside the new Nike Headquarters in Melbourne. Berlin Mural festival commissioned her as a featured artist, painting a five-story building along popular Gorlitzer park. She was subsequently commissioned by Samsung to create an immersive augmented reality installation also in Berlin. She joined Steve Aoki headlining in an Asics Campaign “I Move Me” speaking on how their creativity is inspired by movement, and starred alongside Dani Leigh in an episode for Complex TV which brought together rappers and graffiti artists. 2019 brought ELLE back to Melbourne for a solo show inside the prestigious Rialto Towers, (her previous exhibition was her joint solo with legendary photographer Martha Cooper), to Amsterdam for a joint solo exhibition with Vroom and Varossieau Gallery, France to paint inside MAUSA Museum, and more. She continues to travel the world painting for exhibitions, commissioned works and collaborations.
THE ART: The artwork is located on a 60’ long train car.
THE STORY: ELLE’s vibrant work typically includes giant portraits of women created from multiple images collaged together. In the Napa mural, she places these portraits in front of a backdrop of bright colors and patterns drawn from Mexican art, folklore, and textiles. On one side of the train car, two young women are shown looking at one another, the viewer, and in the distance. They are shown clasping their fingers together in a “pinky swear” which ELLE says is a symbol of the friendships she made in Napa. The energetic compositions succeed in being classical, contemporary, and connected to the Napa Valley culture.
THE PLACE:
