Where the Earth Held Me: A Solo Exhibition by Ellis O'Connor

Where the Earth Held Me brings together a large body of oil paintings shaped by a period of profound personal change and movement through landscape. Created in response to time spent travelling through Scotland and Aotearoa New Zealand, the works reflect an emotional connection to place - from the deep stillness of fjordland to the shelter and quiet rhythm of forests. 

Despite such distance from her Scottish home, Ellis found a real sense of belonging in what would have expectedly been a place of unfamiliarity and discovery. On the opposite side of the globe, she was hugely impacted by this unexpected feeling of stability and calm. Every day while traveling, experiences were new, senses were peaked, and the mind raced with the influx of new visual information, yet the earth reminded her daily that she belonged exactly where she was. This overpowering emotion that Ellis felt while in New Zealand sparked a fire in her that manifested as the collection of work we are now exhibiting.

These paintings are not about depicting specific locations than tracing moments of grounding, calm and reconnection found within them. Through shifting light, atmosphere and gesture, the landscapes become vessels for memory, transition and the search for steadiness within change.

Abstraction: A Collision of the Self and Landscape  

These artworks are anchored in the intangible experiences one has when being met by outrageous natural beauty. Mailability can be found in these places, thus being thrust into change. Yet somehow, despite this evolution, one feels held and comforted by the earth. The imagery in this collection is rooted in the interior rather than the exterior visualisation of those experiences. Therefore, through the abstraction this theme is solidified. Light strikes, shadows are cast, wind is whipped and the self is changed.

Moving through the landscape

Born from Ellis’ time spent exploring the immense and vast landscape of New Zealand, this collection of 25 new artworks represents what happens to the self when the exploration of new terrain collides with the roads of our inner world. These paintings ask: how does the earth connect us with our identities? There is comfort to be found in the constant changeability of life, a guarantee that we are always becoming who we are meant to be. Through propound experiences with the landscape, Ellis has translated this revelation through paint and brushstroke.