Anne Elliott. Weathered

About

Weathered presents us with two separate bodies of work, both linked by the exploration of the subjects’ topographies, and the breadth of vitality they each contain. Anne Elliott’s use of line captures the invisible forces that mark the passing of life, leaving only fleeting impressions. Her first body of work is a series of drawings, paintings, and collages depicting various weather related disasters. The word that comes to mind for these disasters is ‘natural,’ but in an era of rampant climate change, Elliott subtly implicates the role of human agency as well. Rather than simply portraying these disasters, Elliott conducts their energy with strokes of graphite, paint, collage, and marker, allowing her marks to vibrate and convulse within the boundaries of each work.

The second body of work, Lifelines, takes a more intimate stance as a series of small marker drawings on Mylar, rendering the valleys and wrinkles of aging human faces. Looking at each person’s features as a topographical survey of time, human flesh becomes the medium and dominion. Elliott’s lines reveal how a person’s experiences become etched on their faces over a lifetime. It is apparent that Elliott herself has watched many of these stories unfold, that she knows each of her subjects intimately. Just like weather patterns, a human life is unpredictable and constantly shifting, no matter the systems used in attempts of control. Elliott’s linear explorations appear to hold her subjects in moments that otherwise typically avoid containment.