BRITISH PAINTER AND PRINTMAKER ELLA SIMMS IS PREDOMINATELY SELF-TAUGHT AND HER STYLE IS UNIQUE. HER PAINTERLY APPROACH IS ASSOCIATED WITH TWENTIETH CENTURY MODERNISM, ALTHOUGH HER ACTUAL SOURCES OF INSPIRATION CAN BE FOUND IN PLACES AND CULTURES ENCOUNTERED ON FAR-FLUNG TRAVELS OVER THE PAST TWENTY YEARS. MEETINGS WITH PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS AND BELIEFS GREW INTO A SET OF CONVICTIONS THAT BECAME SUBJECT MATTERS FOR WORKS OF ART.

Freedom is fundamental to her beliefs and the act of creating a manifestation of being free. In 2015 Simms found the motivation to set up a studio and develop her own, unique visual language. The universe, and our existence in the face of fate, is a theme that runs through her paintings since then. In 2020 Ella gave up her position with a leading contemporary art gallery to focus on her painting. The onset of the pandemic lead to spending more time in the studio, giving serious thought to the actual meaning of creativity. Freedom was on her mind a lot, as well as the spiritual aspects of existence that are universal. Gradually, she found visual expressions for these non-representational yet undeniably existing structures. Circular shapes in bright yellow tones started to emerge, at times a reference to the moon or the sun, representing both ends of emotional spectrum. Nature takes an important place in Simms painting. Looking at German painter Gerhard Richter’s abstractions of seascapes, she draws on nature without depicting a landscape. Gerhard’s use of the horizon for compositional purposes inspired Simms’ horizontal colour block paintings from 2021. Ella’s use of a range of colours nonetheless leaves the painting operating on a different level than Richter’s. Mauve, golden yellow, dark red and earthly brown come together in a rhythmic composition that soothes the viewer. Mark Rothko’s powerful paintings with an ability to induce spiritual connection may be a more appropriate reference. Simms recognises both masters as sources of inspiration but her painting is not in direct line with either. With her new work Simms continues the exploration of collective and individual harmony and the coexistence of all elements of the universe. At the core of her work is the notion that everything has its own energy, the conviction that each of us has within us the full spectrum of emotions and that we are in control of what energy we want to transmit. Exploring colour and form in abstract constellations, she evokes an emotional response in the viewer that opens one up for self-discovery. Her new paintings display distinct surface tactility, indicating both shared landscape and individual skin. Working with new techniques, including blending sand with oils or sprinkling it onto a painted surface, Simms enters – for her – unexplored territory. The paintings are now more than symbolic, they are there, in their own right. Other paintings contain craquelure, a characteristic associated with ageing in paintings but more importantly in ceramics. The ancient craft is revered by Simms for its use of fire, one of earth’s elements and a source of creation. Craquelure is moreover chance driven and as such inherently a creative process. Simms embraces chance and her painting is largely intuitive. In trusting our intuition, she says, we enter new grounds and continue to grow. Tactility is moreover an expression of energy in Simms’ painting. Light and sound, both carriers of energy, engage our senses through the tiniest vibrations. The surfaces of her paintings play with rays of light as they fall, reminding our visual senses that nothing is permanent.