Elizabeth Scruton

Each piece within my body of work depicts an image of a place, animal or object with which I have a complex and intimate relationship. With the personal subject matter being the focal point of the piece, I give the viewer an opportunity to experience that relationship. By using multiple different types of subject matter, I hope to show how we can have these deep relationships with things other than humans. Also, I explore these relationships with the aim of highlighting the multiplicity of emotions each one encompasses. By reconciling these multiple, sometimes seemingly contradictory, emotions I hope to show how complexity can exist in love.

Through my exploration of these relationships, I found myself depicting the paradoxes that exist within them. For instance, in Macy, I intended to capture the peaceful essense of a moment with my dog. However, through my use of composition and sparse space, I created a painting that can also be seen as melancholic. The complexities of my emotional connection to my dog, my fears and my love, all came out through my unconscious mind. I aim to explore these paradoxes through other non-human relationships, including with my horse, objects in my household and landscapes that have surrounded me during pivotal moments of my life. Peter Doig has been a large inspiration, both formally within specific pieces and thematically throughout. With his intention to portray emotion and engage with autobiographical memories, Doig uses photos only for inspiration and allows the meaning of the connection to guide his depiction. The portrayal of both nature and singular objects in a serene manner has been largely inspired by Vija Celmins. Her still lifes evoke a stillness, not necessarily in a morbid way, I believe is within my work as well.

As I have a variety of canvas sizes, I organized them so they don't visually compete with one another. For example, I gave the largest canvas a wall to itself, the three smaller pieces got one wall so they aren’t dominated by the larger ones, and the two medium canvases split the third wall. They are arranged in salon style so the viewer's eye moves dynamically, creating a freedom to engage with whichever one catches their eye. There is a decent amount of negative space in between each piece, as my goal is for the viewer to engage with each subject matter individually.