Recliner

With subject matter that encompasses soft peaches, ripening tomatoes, the sweeping expanse of a beach, sleeping figures framed by sheets and pillows, arms and hands that support resting heads, the world of Ella Squirrell's paintings expresses a visceral tactility.

Seeming to spring fully formed from thick, assertive and expressive brushstrokes of deep, rich vermilion and powerful, pigmented cobalts, many of Ella's figures and faces are captured in quiet moments of rest, eyes closed and faces slack in repose. The dark, tranquil blues of 'Sleep Painting' are matched by a burnt umber that frames the pale face of its resting subject, whilst in 'Dawn', generous, expressive strokes create the pearlescent shades of a breaking day, captured in gentle peaches and soft sapphires, the face of a sleeper shaded in darker blues, browns and greys as the eyes slowly open, and bedsheets brush closed lips, yellow light seeping into the scene. Elsewhere in Ella's work, subjects stand strong, as if viewed from below, exuding agency and poise (see 'Orange Shirt'), their eyes, direct and unwavering, meet the viewers, or fix resolutely on something unseen (as in 'Ready and Able').

A New Blood Art Masters artist and 2018 Falmouth graduate, Ella is a multidisciplinary artist whose focus is on painting, working with a range of materials including gouache, watercolour and oils. The strength of colour and line and the palpable materiality of the paintings is countered by softer elements of abstraction, opening up the paintings to consider readings beyond the immediate physicality of their subjects. Informed by the experience of mixed ethnic identities and a fascination for the social performance that we all enact to varying degrees in our clothing and behaviour, these are are as much expressions of a searching, exploratory process as 'finished' works. Writing that 'the element of surprise and chance within paintings excites me to capture not only what is seen in a moment, but what is felt, recalled and understood', Ella's paintings are investigations through imagery, informed by photographs, drawings, memories and writing that are rich with association.