Ellen Soffer
Biography
Ellen Soffer is a contemporary abstract painter. She creates paintings on canvas and paper, using mainly oils, but also gouache, acrylic, and watercolor. Currently in the studio, Soffer is focused on a range of large and small paintings where color and movement are emphasized. In addition to twenty solo exhibitions in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Texas, and Georgia, she has been featured in group exhibitions at the Mary Tomás Gallery, Dallas, TX, and the Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, TX. Most recently she had a large exhibition at Artspace in Louisiana with over 60 paintings and works on paper. She is the recipient of the Shreveport Regional Arts Council’s Visual Arts Fellowship and has been awarded several residencies, including the Ragdale Foundation and Skowhegan, as well as selected for Studio Visit magazine and invited to lecture at Middle Georgia State College. Soffer earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art. She lives and works out of her studio in Shreveport, LA.
Artist Statement
My studio and art practice are essential in centering my attention, renewing my energy, and engaging with myself and the formal processes of painting. When beginning a new work, I draw shapes and lines on the canvas while referring to previous explorations that share repeating ideas about color, shape, and mark-making. Using oils, I create intuitively, not always knowing how a piece will come together but certain that color and its intensity will be driving factors. Working in paint’s nonverbal language, I begin to recognize figurative or associative elements as they emerge from the push and pull of gestural lines and overlapping forms. Content and meaning come afterward by carefully reflecting on how individual paintings relate to current and past bodies of work. Their correlations and narrative are not literal, and the spaces are deliberately ambiguous. My intention is to capture the impressions and sensations left behind from dreams, emotions, or memories without being limited to the specific details of the events themselves, leaving room for viewer participation and interpretation.
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