Artist Statement (Late 2025)
My work centres on instability and excess, the body and shifting flesh, and layered construction where earlier lines remain visible. I’m interested in what happens when the mind feels full or overwhelmed - when thoughts overlap, speed up or start to slip. These states of mental instability sit close to how I think about making images. I often recall the moments before sleep, when images drift or shift, because they echo that same looseness. These ideas feed into how I begin a painting. I’m drawn to instability and fullness in both thought and image. Baroque painting, especially Rubens, is important to me for this reason. I’m interested in the intensity of his compositions and the way forms push against the edges of the canvas, almost overflowing their own space. That sense of excess mirrors the feeling of an overloaded mind and connects to the way my own compositions often press outward or feel close to spilling over.
Figures often appear and disappear across layers; some earlier marks are painted over completely while others remain visible. I’m interested in pentimento - the visible revisions in historical drawings by artists like Raphael, Michelangelo and Rubens - where first lines were never fully erased. I like the animation these earlier marks give a drawing, and the ambiguity that comes from seeing more than one version of a figure at once.
The body is important in my work. I focus on how flesh folds, stretches and shifts, and how the exposed body can feel abundant, sensual or overwhelming. I think about Baroque painting here as well, especially Rubens, for the way he paints movement and shifting flesh. His approach to the body has shaped how I handle these forms and how they can change across a surface. I push the figure beyond strict observation so it can move towards something dreamlike or unstable, as if it’s still forming. Bodies sometimes merge, soften or slip into biomorphic shapes. They can feel as if they’re hovering between states, and I’m drawn to those moments when a figure seems to shift from one thing into another. Some of this connects to the hypnagogic images I’ve experienced, where bodies or shapes feel unstable and seem to slide into something else.
My process involves working in layers and letting each one dry before I go back in, often working between several paintings at once. I mix my oil paint with a large amount of linseed oil so the surface stays fluid. I’m drawn to the liquidity and viscosity of oil paint, which often reminds me of the inner workings of the body - fluids like spit, blood or sweat - and how these textures can echo the surfaces of skin when they dry. The paint can slide, pool or thin out, which sometimes causes forms to dissolve or reappear. I add paint, rub it back, glaze over areas or remove sections so earlier versions of the image show through, almost like echoes of previous stages. There is something slightly hypnagogic about this process, where forms drift in and out or reappear unexpectedly, almost like the shifting images before sleep. I work close to the canvas and rarely step back. It’s a way of surrendering some control and letting the painting move in its own direction. Gaps, half-built forms or traces from earlier layers often lead what happens next.
My influences are varied. I look at historical art, mythology, fairy tales, memento mori, and most recently themes of masculinity. I’m drawn to the Carnivalesque because of how it upends ordinary structures and allows things to slip out of place. I’m also interested in public rituals and spectacles such as Turkish Oil Wrestling or the Hadaka Matsuri in Japan. These events show bodies in states of closeness, tension or uncertainty, and they reveal something about how physicality can shift between play, struggle and something instinctive. I also use many images I collect myself, from everyday photographs to scenes of bodies touching or moving in unpredictable ways. All of these references affect how I build an image and how I think about forms that can change, hesitate or overlap. They help me make paintings that feel full, fluid and slightly unstable, as if the image is still in motion or not yet settled into a single state.
I hold a BA in History of Art from UCL and an MA in Fine Art from City & Guilds of London Art School. I was awarded First Prize in Jackson’s Art Prize (2025) and previously completed a two-month residency at Palazzo Monti in Brescia, Italy in 2019. My work is held in private collections and institutions across the UK, US, Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. I currently live and work in Oxfordshire, UK.
For more regular updates on my studio practice, please see my Instagram: @eleanorjohnsonstudio.