Ellen Kappes' Lively Watercolor Paintings
King's Point at high tide, watercolor
Ellen Kappes creates delicate yet lively watercolor paintings in blue and green hues. As subject matter, the artist favours landscapes, rendering lush green trees in daubed brush marks over deep blue washes as oceans.
I like the way that the artist utilizes the medium of watercolor – Ellen doesn’t try to force the thin paint into fine details, but rather runs with the slightly blurred, soft-edged aesthetic necessitated by the dispersed pigment and flowing water. At the same time, she manages to maintain strong color saturation. Her tones never seem overly washed out, and the subtler, dilute tones always serve a purpose within the image.
Ellen’s silkscreens are almost the opposite, aesthetically speaking. It’s fascinating to see the artist using a lot of the same subject matter in these works, interpreting it in a delightfully different style. Her silkscreens are hard-edged, graphic, and modern. Ellen’s portfolio serves as a testament to the way that an artistic interpretation can change one’s view and recollection of a space.
