Ellis O'Connor

Ellis O’Connor is a contemporary landscape artist from Scotland, living on the Outer Hebridean Island of North Uist, working in the field of painting and drawing. She graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone in 2016, with a master’s degree in Fine Art and Humanities. With inspiration from the environment, Ellis makes much of the artwork on site where extreme weather and the elements find their way into the pieces. Ellis describes the process of working outdoors in wild weather as almost ‘performative’.

Since graduating, she has worked in many artists in residence programmes, including The Bothy Project in Cairngorms National Park. She was also awarded a scholarship, amongst artists and scientists, to work at an Artist in Residency with the Clipperton Project. Working her way around the Northern Isles of Scotland, she ventured by boat around the Archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic.

‘The movement and rhythms of the sea and the land…the merging of the sea with air, advancing rain and mist, ever-changing light – elements that seem to be about something intangible.’

Ellis’ work is exhibited regularly in Scotland and further afield. She was awarded the John Byrne Award in 2018, the winner of the Royal Scottish Academy Landscape Award in 2015, and selected for next years RSA New Contemporaries exhibition.