Join us for coffee, snacks, and an opportunity to meet our new sanctuary artist, Ellen Cohen! Explore a collection of artwork created over the past 15 years, featuring exquisitely detailed botanical illustrations, photorealistic paintings, sketches, and landscapes. Ellen’s work reflects a deep appreciation for the beauty of the natural world and the precision of scientific illustration.
Come meet Ellen, enjoy her artwork, and help us welcome her to our community!
Ellen's Artist Bio:
This show represents artwork that Ellen has done, intermittently, over the past 15 years. Many of these pieces were created as assignments for her Botanical Illustration Certification Program at the NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill (2010-2012).
As can be seen, Botanical Illustration requires a very technical accuracy in the rendering of each subject. It represents a scientific investigation and description of a plant which could be used in a scientific textbook or journal. It requires the utmost discipline, documenting every aspect of the subject as it would appear in a photograph.
In other pieces, Ellen continued this same Photo Realism to depict subject matter of non-botanical objects or creatures. The landscapes show a bit more freedom of expression, although still remaining in the genre of Photo Realism.
In many cases, paintings and sketches were done using her own photographs while others were done using real objects or live plants.
In future work, Ellen is thinking about enjoying the freedom of less structured styles of painting, as in watercolor sketches and earthy free-form artwork.
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