ARTIST STATEMENT

My practice focus is human-nature connectedness, which I explore through diverse mediums to consider all the ways in which we (can) change in relation to the natural world, and how it feels to experience belonging in (and to) nature. Each work is a reaching towards more expansive, dynamic and sensuous understandings of the human experience as nature, expressing ways in which we move through and are moved by the natural world.

Embodied Ecology

Foundational to these inquiries is the concept of embodied ecology, which celebrates the fluidity between human bodies and the more-than-human world. Foregrounding porosity over boundaries, and relations over othering, it invites us to consider - with humility and wonder - the human body as both contained within, and custodian of, worlds within worlds within worlds within worlds…

Embodied ecology provides my studio with a framework for studying the macro and micro environments that our bodies inhabit and hold. It breaks down illusions of separateness, illuminating myriad dimensions to our human-nature relationship. I am fascinated by the biological, chemical and physical qualities of embodied ecologies (inspired by the work of Dr Andrea Ford et al at the Society for Cultural Anthropology), and how symbolism, metaphor, mythology and sensory-led practice can extend this into new realms of understanding through the creative arts.

Transformation

Running parallel is a fascination with both the biological processes of transformation found throughout the natural world and human psychological resistance to and desire for change. I am interested in how to articulate the multiple sensations of our human-nature relationship as both fleeting and eternal states of inter-being. Moving between symbolism and science, scale and time, the tangible and the intangible, personal and collective, my work ponders on the tensions that exist between our potential for and the inevitability of change, and the different qualities of engaging with transformation in nature, with nature, as nature — for nature. In particular, I am intrigued by forms of dis-integration as portals to re-integration; composting systems that disconnect and divide.

Sensorial

All explorations are guided by sensory-led creative practices. I often begin new works with ‘wild drawing’ — experimental, embodied mark-making that prioritises recording abstract sensorial experiences rather than accurate visual records. Sometimes, these drawings are carried into new paintings but often it is the simplicity of the practice itself that is vital to the beginning stages of new projects; I find it a gentle yet powerful tool in heightening ecocentric, present-moment attentiveness to the dynamism of the environment.

Painting between the studio and en plein air, I work intuitively with colour, pattern, form and symbols, and build artworks with layers of semi-translucent washes, gestural or whole body brush strokes, fragments of paintings, drawings or textiles. The interplay of shadow and light is increasingly important to this process — concealing, transforming, magnifying, revealing, animating — followed by layers of pattern to delve deeper into details, textures and forms. Much like cloud-spotting, my practice involves sitting with paintings to observe the abstract forms and figures that organically emerge out of the initial layers, before I work further to surface the story — or stories — that appear. This is partly inspired by collaborations with historians and scientists, conceptually evolving in the studio into a process of deconstructing and reconfiguring so as to create space for new perspectives.

Science and spirituality

My practice draws inspiration from diverse cosmologies and is also often grounded in research collaborations. Over the course of my career working with academics, I have become intrigued by the liminal space in which cultures and religions meet the sciences, and the shared passion that is held in this space for understanding our world and what it means to be human. Often the language used in these realms can be alienating; I search for mediation and meeting points through my practice, dancing between data and mythology, rigour and release, the known and the unknown.

activations

Over the past four years, creative writing and multidisciplinary collaborations have become integral to deepening my visual articulations of the sensorial. Short stories often surface alongside and in conversation with my artworks, and it has become an important aspect of my commissioned work to invite movement, architecture, sound, masquerade, lighting and design practitioners to extend these artwork-stories further, co-developing new forms of storytelling. I see these as ‘activations’ of the two-dimensional, inviting audiences to wonder with me through immersive, inclusive and embodied experiences.

Bryony Ella, 2026

Portraits by Brendan Delzin - British Council Americas project, Trinidad 2023.