Ellis O’Connor describes the creation of her painting Where Stone Breaks, the final and most recent work for her exhibition. She painted it shortly after returning from Iceland, inspired by the overwhelming power and beauty of the Icelandic landscape, particularly the intense greens of the moss and the dark volcanic rock. Without a plan, she painted intuitively over several layers, using oil bars to capture the emotion and energy of her experience. The process was cathartic, allowing her to process the visceral sensations of the landscape.
She explains that naming her works is challenging, as her art is her language; condensing vast feelings into a few words feels unnatural. The title Where Stone Breaks reflects the constant motion and living energy of Iceland’s geothermal landscape—where earth, fire, and ice collide in perpetual transformation. O’Connor also shares that collectors of her work tend to connect emotionally rather than geographically, resonating with the depth, movement, and inner feeling in her paintings rather than literal depictions of place.
TRANSCRIPT
Yeah. So, this was actually the most recent painting that I've made for the exhibition. This was the last painting of the lot, and I painted it a few days after I came back from Iceland. It was because when I got back from Iceland, my brain felt so full from so many incredible experiences there.
I walked this trail called the Leg of Vega trail in the highlands of Iceland, and it was so dark and dramatic and stormy and really powerful, and quite scary, actually. The environment there made me feel very small and very insignificant, and it was such a visceral experience being immersed in such an otherworldly place. I felt like I was on a different planet.
The colors of the green have stayed with me so much because the moss there is the most incredible neon green, and it's everywhere— but then it’s combined with this really dark molten lava rock everywhere. So, I created this when I got back from Iceland because I’d made most of the works already for the show before I went, but when I got back, I thought, I need to create something really big and powerful because the whole experience was so big and powerful.
It was like I had to get it out of my head in order to process the experience. So, I built up some layers, it’s got about two or three layers within this work, and I used oil bars to create some of the greens and the initial marks. But then it came out over the course of a few hours. I had no plan of what I wanted to do for this work; I just knew that I had to get a lot of these scenes and emotions from Iceland out onto the canvas.
I never have a plan, really. When I create a painting, it just comes out, and then I'm either happy with it or I’m not. With this one, it happened quite quickly, and I think it was because my brain felt very full of experiences. It was very cathartic when it came out onto the canvas— it allowed me to process it through my hand onto the surface.
I knew it was done when I didn’t want to retouch it. Over the years, I’ve got much better at knowing when a piece is finished, because there have been times when I’ve gone back into a painting and lost it, which is really frustrating. Now I just trust that intuitive voice within myself that says, that’s done, it’s ready. So that’s what happened for this one, and I’ve just left it because I really love it, it expresses how I felt when I was immersed in such an incredible environment.
I find titling my work very difficult because my language of making sense of the world is through painting, through visuals. Trying to capture a sense of feeling and place, and condense a work that feels so gigantic and emotional into one or two words, feels quite unnatural. So, I tend to go through poems or journal entries—like from my time in Iceland—where I’ve written words to describe the landscape. Then I can return to those and let the titles come naturally, but it’s a process I find hard.
This one is called Where Stone Breaks because the landscape and environment in Iceland were so terrifying and so alive, constantly in motion. The land was always moving; there was geothermal activity everywhere. Smoke came up from the ground, rivers boiled, volcanoes erupted, glaciers surrounded everything.
I titled it Where Stone Breaks because it felt like the land itself was so powerful that the stones were constantly in motion. It was, in the same breath, such an ancient landscape but also very fresh and alive, like it was being formed in front of my eyes.
I think the kind of people that buy my work, I don’t want to stereotype, because so many different types of people have bought my work all over the world—but the feedback I get most is from people who resonate with the emotional feeling in the work.
They’re not necessarily looking for a painting of a specific place, like a postcard image, but rather an emotional, physical experience that the work evokes. It might make them feel something deep, or remind them of an emotion. I think the people who connect most with my work are the ones who go below the surface, they understand the deeper connections and feelings within the paintings and recognize that it’s communicating something more than what’s visible on the canvas.
They don’t take it at surface level, which I love. But yeah, it could be for so many other reasons. I don’t know. That’s just the biggest feedback I’ve had so far.
