Painting is Sumner artist’s personal! expression of beauty in nature

Press, 3 June 1981, Page 15

Painting is Sumner artist’s personal! expression of beauty in nature

By

LEONE STEWART

' Yes. I do feel isolated here. I so miss just being with other artists occasionally. talking about painting." Eva Ellis, painter — Scandinavian - American Christchurch resident for the past 10 years — is wistful, not complaining. When she goes overseas she finds much interest in New Zealand and our art. The standard of painting in Christchurch she judges "excellent." It is the warmth of shared experience among groups of professional painters she joined in the United States that she misses here. Her studio in the Ellis home at Clifton Terrace commands a breathtaking view of the sea and the sky in all their moods. Long hours are also spent painting on the beach, with the family corgi in alert attendance. Eva Ellis continues to exhibit occasionally here. More often she shows in the United States, and in Europe. This year she has been awarded a iliploma with gold medal, by the Italian Academy of Art. With little promotion, her works sell to those who enjoy sharing the power and beauty of nature which her paintings celebrate. Born and educated in Seattle. a city embracing water and tree-clad hills, her present Sumner environment is somewhat like coming home. A collection of her work is on exhibition at the Shoreline Historical Museum, an historic Seattle school converted for the arts, all year to mark our sister-city inaugural. Eva Ellis welcomes Christchurch’s sister-city connection, even though she is rather sad the local committee is not interested in her contribution. “They want only Christchurch people. I can understand that." The Ellis family came to New Zealand in 1971, when Professor Everitt Ellis became professor of wood science at the University of Canterbury. They lived first in what Professor Ellis describes wryly as a "very proper brick house." near the university. Friends, knowing of Eva's development of expressionistie seascapes, told them of the Clifton Terrace place. “It was in a bad way, but we could see the possibilities. We’ve been working on them ever since;” remarks Eva, with a smile. The view settled it. Both

the Ellises come from pioneering Seattle families. Eva’s parents had an adventurous life in Alaska before settling in Seattle. She has some tales of courage and endurance to tell of her Norwegian mining engineer father, and her Swedish mother, who left behind a family country estate which has now become a national trust and park. "I was born when my mother was 40. so they had done a lot of living before I arrived." explains Eva Ellis, who has the fair colouring and vivid blue eyes of her heritage. "My father believed a woman should be able to do anything she was capable of. He admired the Russian women sea captains who came into port in Seattle where he worked in the 19305.” In their last American home, in Oregon, the Ellis family enjoyed an expansive mountain view. “But we have never felt so close to the forces of nature as here." savs Professor Ellis. The sweep of the bays and the drama of light is both inspiration and distraction. ■'Sometimes, when I’m in my studio I suddenly realise I’ve stopped painting. I've got lost in that view." admits Eva. The Edwardian Sumner home now seems very Seattle. (The Pacific North-West city reveals in many homes its'strong Scandinavian influence from early settlement, when lumber yielded pioneering riches.) The Ellises have opened out the rooms so that each leads into the next. The wooden, stained floors are rug-covered, the drapes and furniture beige and cream, the white walls hung with artefacts collected on their travels and Eva Ellis’s paintings. Her portraits of their four children — Karin, who graduated in computer science from the University of London and is now studying for a B.A. in divinity at the University of Sydney: Myrriah; a B.A. from Swarth- ’ more College in Pennsyl-. vania. computer engineer and keen mountain climber; Hildy. a B.A. in religious studies from the University of Otago, now living in Auckland; and Erik, who is a seventh form pupil at Christchurch Boy’s High . — have pride of place in the living room. In the cosy kitchen her mother and fath.er preside, in late middle-age. They are

captured during the ritual afternoon coffee break. Father engaged in one of his ever-ready, witty stories. Mother an appreciative audience: "In spite of the life she led. Mother was rather proper because of her upbringing in Sweden. Father kept her laughing all her life." Eva reminisces. Those are warm, charming portraits, revealing a strong grasp of conventional, painterly techniques, and an ability to capture character. It is hard to'imagine Eva Ellis painting an unkind portrayal. or even a get-tough, warts-and-all job. She has a positive outlook, a sympathetic nature, a need to see the best in the world around her. Which is not to say she has taken the easy path in painting. The years of child-rear-ing. and teaching art to children in Oregon — which she loved — have seen her reach for challenge in technique, to focus on subject matter.

"People like representational work. They can get a lot of pleasure from discovering what they can see in a painting. "And for myself. I find the most challenge, the most interest in abstract work." Her seascapes are executed in water colour on canvas-type paper, or very wet acrylic on board. She employs the drip-technique with sophisticated control. With it she conveys all the movement and patterns of colour and light on water. The Sumner seascapes are all luminous swirling blues and greens. But Eva Ellis can also light up a painting in vivid, tropical colours. Witness her seascapes done after a holiday snorkeling in Tahiti. Eva Ellis decided she wanted to be a painter when she was eight. She had "superb" tuition at school, gra-

duated B.A. in art trom the University of Washington in Seattle, and M.A. in art from the University of Idaho. Her first job was at Seattle's multi-storey fashion store. Best’s Apparel, now Nordstrom’s. She recalls its elegance with great nostalgia. "The displays were like stage sets. I’ve not seen anything to equal it then, not even in New York.-The art director — a lovely man — was like a set designer. A wonderful job ... I could just sit and think all day if I wanted to. My. it was like playing every day." After her marriage and move East, she worked for three years in New York. When the famil.v moved to Ann Arbor. Michigan. Eva Ellis joined a group of professional women painters who exhibited regularly. "It was a wonderful group. We gained a great deal of loving support from each other. And there was no jealousy. "Women need to be encouraged. and not to be inhibited about their painting."

During the Ann Arbor years, painting while bringing up her children and indulging her love of cooking. Eva Ellis’s style began to evolve from the predominantly post-impressionist idiom. She began to develop the more imaginative, fluid style of her seascapes. Moving to Oregon was a catalyst. There the seascapes began. She recalls; "I wanted to paint that misty air about the ocean when it rains." Her surroundings have always influenced her. Time spent among the mountains in Aspen produced painting dominated by strong, earthy shapes — the contours of rocks and boulders moulded into- a different' vision. She paints occasional mountain scenes here too. But the seascapes seem most full.v resolved. Perhaps that is because they are most truly expressive of the artist. “As a painter I want to awaken people to the beauty around us. and to enable them to use their imagination so that too becomes part of the painting."