Ellen Van Fleet
Artist Biography
Ellen Van Fleet (born 1942 Ross, Calif) received an MA degree (Magna Cum Laude) from the University of Calif at Davis in 1968. She lived and worked in New York City for seven years exhibiting at Paula Cooper, Richard Bellamy and Holly Solomon galleries before returning to California to teach at the University of Calif, San Diego.
Ellen has received grants; one from the National Endowment for the Arts and she has exhibited and/or is collected by the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Tx, the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, the Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, Or, and the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA.
Ellen has been making watercolors for 20+ years because she likes the way watercolor sinks into paper; the way mistakes let new possibilities emerge and because paper can be torn up and reassembled until something mysterious appears.
“My influences are Henri Matisse for his devotion, the unusualness of his compositions and his color; Neil Welliver for his watercolors of trout;and Clayton Eshleman for his articulation of Homo Sapiens artistic beginnings. I want the journey through my painting to be unusual and invigorating so that the viewing is a pleasure. I don’t have a message.”
Categories: Artists, watercolor
