Ella Walker

Ella Walker’s practice combines painting, drawing and fresco, utilising various media including tempera, gesso, pastel and ink. Using pigments combined with fluid mediums to build the image, the paint is layered in thin washes of colour to enact a unique process and explore imagined otherworlds. Inspired by medieval narrative and costume, her highly stylised works often directly reference Renaissance and medieval iconography. Objects from this period resonate through her work, from manuscripts to mosaics, defining her repertoire of works.

With a diverse array of source material, Walker creates abstracted depictions of ‘traditional’ subjects interplaying between the realms of drawing, painting and design. Her works comprise of shallow spaces that utilise pattern and flat plains of colour that disrupt the structure of the composition. The result is a series of resplendent large-format works, rich in narrative and colour.

Ella Walker was born in 1993 in Manchester. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 2015, and at the Royal Drawing School, graduating in 2018. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United Kingdom, including recent exhibitions, Draw Out the Figure that You Will Make, EMBASSY gallery, Edinburgh, 2018 and Unswept House, Glasgow, 2017. Her work is housed in several European permanent collections, including the Royal Collection, London. 

She lives and works in London.