The Dwellings © Ellie Davies
The Richard Young Gallery 4 Holland Street W8 4LT Londres Royaume-Uni
Ellie Davies: Into the Woods
5 October – 17 November 2012
The Richard Young Gallery invites you into the realms of naturalism and fairytale with an intriguing solo exhibition by award-winning English photographer, Ellie Davies. Into the Woods will showcase a selection from each of the five series Davies has produced from 2010 – 2012 including and introducing her most recent, unseen body of work, The Dwellings.
With this collection of 24 photographs Ellie Davies captures the mystery and intrigue of ancient forests by creating minimally disruptive woodland installations that transform the natural into the fanciful. These carefully constructed environments offer the viewer a nostalgic possibility of discovering something magical amidst the trees and shadows.
Davies works mostly alone in the woodland to become fully attuned and engulfed by the atmosphere of each individual setting. She performs small acts of engagement by painstakingly crafting and arranging her chosen materials within the natural world and then documenting her intervention with photography.
Painted leaves are positioned into paths enticing the viewer to delve deeper into the forest; golden trees reveal themselves within heavily saturated green and brown environments; strands of wool ephemerally create beguiling trails that jump from tree to tree; ovals of bright light hover within the panorama of the darkened forest floor; and dwellings created from fallen branches are stumbled upon – unsure of whether they were created by man or animal.
Ellie Davies comments:
‘My work grows out of my sense of the woodland I am in. There is often a slight tension, an eeriness, but also great beauty in the shadows beneath the trees, and my images are an evocation of these feelings. I wanted my compositions to capture a sense of my place within the woodland and my response to it, but also a feeling of enchantment - like a chance discovery in a fairytale.’
Richard Young Gallery, 4 Holland Street,
London, W8 4LT
Telephone: 0207 937 8911
Monday – Thursday 10am – 6pm
Friday 10am – 5pm
Saturday 10.30am – 5pm
Come with Me © Ellie Davies
Richard Young Gallery is dedicated to exhibiting innovative, contemporary fine art photography.
Founded in 2008 by Susan and Richard Young and located in the heart of Kensington, the Richard Young Gallery has quickly become the foremost contemporary photography gallery in West London.
Exhibiting six to eight exhibitions per year, the gallery’s exhibition programme focuses purely on contemporary photographic-based work, by emerging to established British and International photographers, who push boundaries and think ‘outside the box’.
About Ellie Davies
Ellie Davies currently lives and works in London. She gained an MA in Photography at London College of Communication. Her work has been exhibited in the UK and abroad.
She looks forward to her sixth solo show in the autumn of 2012 at Richard Young Gallery, W8.
Davies’ work will also be showing at three international photo festivals in 2012; Arles in France, Noorderlicht in The Netherlands, and the Singapore International Photo Festival, with further touring exhibitions to follow in 2013. Also in late 2012 Open to Interpretation: Intimate Landscape exhibitions tours Gordon Parks Gallery, St Paul, Minneapolis, and Newspace Center for Photography, Portland, Oregon. Her work has also been selected for an exhibition in Moscow this summer, about sustainable forestry, sponsored by the FSA.
Solo shows in 2011 included Come with Me – New Landscape by Ellie Davies at The Print House Gallery in London from 21st Oct – 27th Nov, Smoke and Mirrors:
Solo Exhibition at 10GS, London, W1 from 12th May – 5th September, and Ellie Davies Solo Exhibition - Brucie Collections, Kiev, Ukraine from 16th March – 2nd May.
Recent group exhibitions in 2011 included Nine-Point Perspective: Ways of Seeing at Hotshoe Gallery, London, Symbiosis at Hoxton Art Gallery, London, and The Lens Culture International Exposure Awards: 31 Contemporary Photographers; this touring exhibition visited Paris, New York and San Francisco during 2011. Also, The Tallinn 15th Print Triennial at Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia, and the Salon Photo Open 2011 at Matt Roberts Gallery, Vyner Street, London.
In 2010 The Foto8 Summer Show at Host Gallery, London, The Exeter Contemporary Open 2010 at Phoenix Gallery in Exeter, Sight Unseen at Photofusion Gallery, London, and in 2009 The ArtSway Open 09 at ArtSway Gallery, New Forest, and The New York Photo Awards New Visionaries 09 in Brooklyn, New York.
Smoke and Mirrors © Ellie Davies
Ellie has recently been awarded an Honourable Mention in the Professional Women Photographers International Juried Exhibition, and The Lens Culture International Exposure Awards 2010, 1st Place in the Fine Art Landscape category of the 2010 PX3 Paris Photo Prize, The Exeter Phoenix 2010 Audience Choice Award, ArtSlant Showcase Juried Winner in 2010 and 2011, and Commended in the LPA Landscape Awards 2010. She has also been awarded The New Brewery Arts Open ‘Public Choice Award’ 2009, The Charmian Adams Award 2009, The International Photography Awards 2009 - Official Selection, and The New York Photo Awards 2008: Honourable Mention.
Her work has recently been featured in Fuzion Magazine, Photo+ Magazine – South Korea, Conscientious, Lens Culture, Art Ukraine, Tree Magazine, Entitle Magazine, Urbanautica, F-Stop Magazine, Le Monde Magazine and The London Independent Photography Selected Artist Showcase.
Recent books features include Open To Interpretation: Intimate Landscapes – Published October 2012, and Behind the Image By Natasha Caruana and Anna Fox.
Her work is held in private collections in the United Arab Emirates, the UK, the US, Central and Eastern Europe, South Korea and Russia.
Vignette et photos © Ellie Davies