ELSA CHESNEL
Painting, Works on Paper, Illustration, Charcoal, Pastel, Acrylic, Ink, Graphite, Pigment
Charcoal Dreams
Charcoal and pastel on paper
18” x 12”
City: Maple Ridge, British Columbia
Website: http://www.elsachesnel.com
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/elsachesnel/
Artist Statement: I have always been seduced by charcoal: the duality of its sharp contrast and soft frailty; the black mess engulfing me as the picture emerges. I am also highly attracted to automatism and very large-scale canvases in which I can create abstract worlds and send the viewer on endless adventures of the mind. Charcoal being almost impossible to preserve on such large scales, I was forced to change my mediums, to adopt (acrylic) paint, and to shift the messy fun from dust on paper, to pigment dust mixing before applying it on canvas.
While engulfing the viewer is all I strive for, my physical limitations are such that, sometimes, smaller formats are all I can achieve. The search for volume and colors remains, but the interaction limits itself. The impact changes out of necessity; one cannot lose oneself in abstraction anymore and careful figurative studies emerge.
Though, this zigzagging between large & small, abstract & figurative, is far from being aimless; it is an ever moving dance in which each medium and each moment teaches me something new. Vibrations through movement, bold lines and bright colors, they all help me keeping the subject slightly out of focus, forcing the brain to fill in subtleties as it wishes, but still giving it something recognizable to hold on to. My goal: familiarity in the unknown.
Biography: Elsa Chesnel is a self-taught Visual Artist. She started early, learning about colors and composition through her own studies of European history of art; in her late teens, she picked up photography and was stricken by the power of contrast. Fast forward to her late twenties, once her immigration to Canada complete, when she started focusing on North American art history, on Beat poetry and Abstract Expressionism; this is when her poet friend and mentor asked her “what if…”
Elsa’s personal experiments in life drawing evolved in two different directions: tight academic studies and loose abstractions of considerable size. Taking her practice seriously paid off and she scored her first (small but significant) exhibition in 2018. Since then, Elsa has shown in many solo and group exhibitions in Greater Vancouver, and she is happily featured in private collections in both Europe and North America.