Ellen Gallagher
Ellen Gallagher was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1965. Gallagher studied at the Oberlin College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston Massachusetts. Gallagher creates her art through painting, drawing, collages, and films. Finding inspiration and motivation in advertisements and popular magazines Gallagher is attracted to the language of these objects creating narratives in her work stimulated by the characters of the advertisements. Narrative based stories inspired from found materials have enthused Gallagher. Gallagher has received many awards such as the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship and the American Academy Award. Gallagher has had her work exhibited in a vast variety of museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, St. Louis Art Museum, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in San Francisco.
Gallagher has a very interesting process to creating her work. First she creates the scale in which she is going to work on, and then plasticine is used to create claymation. Next Gallagher builds a grid of pages from magazines relating each object to the next and finally she glues the sheets to the canvas. Gallagher starts from one corner of the canvas working her way across and down. Gallagher stated in relation to her process that, “There’s a kind of improvisation that happens. You’ll do about nine wigs a day, or nine prosthetics a day. And they relate to each other over time. You can see shifts which is also why I like to show more than one painting together, because they mark quite a long time period in making.”
I am attracted to Gallagher’s work and how she uses a vast range and mix of materials when creating her work. Also I am engrossed by her style, Gallagher often used vintage magazines when creating her work which is appealing to me because of my love for everything vintage.
Quotes
“The work comes out of my desire to create an expansive, fluid realm that is both the concrete historical fragments it is made up of and the new form it describes.”
--Ellen Gallagher
“I really get excited by this idea that a printed material can be so widely distributed.”—Ellen Gallagher
Ellen Gallagher, "Feminine Hygiene"
2005, Courtesy Two Palms Press.
Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine
Ellen Gallagher, "from Preserve series"
Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine
Ellen Gallagher, "Pomp- Bang"
2003 (detail)
Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine
Ellen Gallagher, "Millie Christine" from "Deluxe"
2004-2005 13 x 10 inches
Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine
Ellen Gallagher, "Mr. Terrific from "Deluxe"
2004-2005 13 x 10 inches
Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine
Website: Ellen Gallagher does not have a website.
Gallery: Gagosian Gallery, Jan 22- Feb 26, 2011, West 24th St. NY, NY
Works Cited
Ellen Gallagher. Gagosian Gallery. 26 March 2011. <http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2011-01-22_ellen-gallagher/>.
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