Bio
Eloise Mitchell is an Australian artist and teacher. In her paintings, Eloise investigates our relationship with nature and place where she explores allowing the environment to ‘sing’ what is present, as listening becomes the focus. Her work blends figuration and abstraction, by representing landscapes, animals, plants, and symbols from built environments.
Having recently returned from living on the edge of an ironbark forest, her most recent work is inspired by the uninterrupted experience of living beneath the red box canopy at Dunmoochin. An environment that culturally connects nature, community and the arts through the foundations dedicated work. Eloise follows a process of plein air and studio painting.
About
Eloise Mitchell
is an Australian artist working with oil on canvas. Along side a deep connection to her rural home, travel both locally and internationally has been an important catalyst for her art making.
Teaching art in community schools, including a Warlpiri community in the Tanamai desert NT, has supported Eloise in her passionate interest in community education and wellbeing, as well as providing daily challenges for personal and creative growth.
Setting up a permanent studio space coincided with a body of work shown under the title of Invisible Cities in 2006.
“ Through the development of these paintings I explored dreams. An awareness of dreams being linked emerged as I began to navigate my way around memories of dreamscapes. It was quite a vivid discovery and created a vital need to map the dreams in some form. Whilst exploring one familiar area I drifted down an adjacent street and found I was looking at another dream from a different angle and another time “.
A greater interest in Carl Jung and dream theorists followed. The unconscious world became more tangible and exposed the great potential for Art as a ‘multi dimensional’ and healing medium.
“…Like a fabled lost continent, the wild dreamland rises out of our bodies, rises steaming and streaming to create a motherland over all of us. This is the continent of our knowing. It is the land of self “ Clarissa Pinkola Estes
In 2011 Eloise relocated to regional Victoria, living in a one bedroom miners cottage with a shed for a studio. During this time involvement in the setting up of an alternative education setting and facilitating community arts projects supported getting to know the region. In 2013 this lead to an opportunity to travel to New Zealand as part of a team researching Positive Psychology in Education. Eloise has run Art Workshops and educational talks at the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) in regional Victoria, as well as assisting in archiving the museum’s art collection.
Graduate Diploma Qualifications in Creative Arts Therapy in Melbourne, achieved in 2013 has complimented her work, whilst broadening personal art practices.
A working adventure to The Kimberley in Western Australia in mid 2017 saw Eloise return to live and teach in remote communities. This time located in Walmajarri country with a population of 100 people.
Working again locally in Victoria, on community development projects up until 2020, this culminated in the community acquisition of facilities to create an Arts Precinct in Rushworth. And at the turn of the decade, taking cues from the call of inner worlds in conversation with the natural world , Eloise took the opportunity to direct her focus into studio life, producing a body of work called Wildwood Days which was exhibited in the unique rustic Rushworth Art Depot.
Currently 12 month live in, artist in residence at the Dunmoochin Art Foundation, returning closer to Melbourne nestled in beautifully familiar Country.
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