PICK OF THE WEEK: Sharon Ellis
There is something sugary about Sharon Ellis’ new psychedelic paintings that are reminiscent of my favorite childhood board game, Candy Land, nostalgic of gingerbread plum trees, the peppermint stick forest, Queen Frostine and Princess Lolly. Ellis’ paintings also remind me of the last time I took mushrooms and indulged in looking up at the glittering night sky. It’s hard to say if these sugarcoated landscapes are enchanted or haunted. Biomorphic forms vibrate and surge with electricity that evokes a magical sense of wonder with a sinister undercurrent, situating them within the sublime. Ellis attempts to imagine what we cannot imagine, see what cannot be seen. She imagines a nature that is emotive and interconnected. Geologically ambiguous and seemingly devoid of human life, Ellis’ landscapes are represented in a style akin to scientific thermal images, prompting us to question the unseen source(s) of emissions that cause the environment to glow. While concepts of the sublime have been endlessly discussed and debated, there is still value in Ellis’ attempt to question and push against the limits of human perception. In defense of artistic representations of the sublime, Eva Horn asserts: “What is needed are bodies of evidence for a transformation that is both so massive and so tiny, that is happening so fast and so slowly that no image or narrative can ever grasp its breadth. How can we start to sense what we only know abstractly? Producing such bodies of evidence seems like an impossibility–and at the same time, more necessary than ever.”