Hello!

I’m Ella Kirlew, I am a visual artist based in Lexington, Kentucky, and Ithaca, New York. I am currently studying Art at Cornell University with plans to graduate in 2027.

Artist Statement

My work is an exploration of identity, place, and ideas of home. I am primarily concerned with the experiences of Black life, transience and change, womanhood and the body, especially hair and concepts of beauty. My practice engages these elements thematically and in terms of form, and I use materials as a mode to create meaning. 

When I use oil paint, I am able to move the paint easily. After creating an underpainting using one color that demonstrates a range of values, I can practice a kind of transience as I remove and replace the paint. Layering and complexity are key for me and I can use as many as 100 different colors on a human face. Working with watercolors also allows me to exercise building and layering with ink or even colored pencils. This aspect of my art-making allows me to formally approach the concepts of complex identity and lived experiences. Printmaking, the art form that intrigues me the most, allows me to use repetition to interrogate the ideas I’m exploring. The labor of screen print, linocuts, etchings, and monotypes lets me create what seems like the same image but one that can be made different in very subtle ways. 

I am very aware of my own body and the tactile when I make art, so whether using brushes to paint or tearing and stretching paper, cutting blocks, or etching into stone, plate, or plexi, my hands and entire body are at work to make art. 

Even if the viewer is unaware of the labor or the thematic and formal elements, my goal is that they are moved in some way by what they are viewing. Even if the meaning is not clear to them, I want something in the works to provoke them to consider their own story and their place in the world instead of attempting to understand mine.