THE SIT DOWN
14: ELLA WARNER
Three years at art school sharpened things further. Her early work saw refined, bright creatures, or ‘Globulars’, in an imagined landscape, but her practice has shifted considerably since. Whilst completing several works for a solo show at the end of her second year, she felt numbed to the repetition of these creatures, and desired more from the canvas, paint and process. Warner is quick to acknowledge that her relationship to failure was formed during this time and has continued as an important part of her process.
Her paintings today are composed of figures commenting on the known and unknown self, existing on a sliding scale of human recognition. She is interested in their relationship to each other, often viewing the figures as abstract marks reacting with one another. They are spatially confident yet aware of others, caught in the gazes between bodies sharing a space. She works quickly, following her hand, and is unusually attuned to the moment a painting is finished.
Alongside the paintings, she writes — not as a separate practice but as part of the process itself. Writing in the third person, as though observing the work from outside herself, she narrates each painting as it develops. It functions as a running self-commentary, a way of thinking out loud whilst stepping back from the canvas.
Warner has shown in London and beyond, including a solo exhibition at Mount House Gallery in 2024 and group presentations at ASC Gallery in collaboration with the London Design Festival and with AOAP Projects at the Bomb Factory in Marylebone.
PF: Who or what has influenced your work the most?
So many people. Marlene Dumas, Ambera Wellmann, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Paula Rego are incredibly reliable influences. But a year ago, Rubens and Titian were somewhere within that mix. That’s only to name a few painters, not to mention other artists, and the special conversations I’ve had with various people.
PF: Walk us through your creative process?
Stretch the canvas, two layers of primer, one layer of ground, see where the forms are landing, try flipping it round, see new figures, build, rub away, build more, write, try not to judge in the early stages, build, rub away, build.
PF: What do you want people to feel or take away from your art?
I want to allow them, encourage them even, to feel comfort in their discomfort and not shy away from potential confrontation.
PF: If you could have dinner with any artist who would it be?
Right now, I’d choose my great-grandad, Heinz Worner. He was a sculptor in the 60s in East Berlin, and fled to London with my grandad just before the wall was put up, but then went back to East Berlin. I’d want to ask him what it was like making work within such a volatile environment.
SELECT WORKS
Oil and oil stick on canvas, Diptych: each panel 90 x 120 cm
Oil on canvas,
120 x 240 cm
Oil and oil stick on canvas
120 x 155 cm
Oil and oil stick on linen
50 x 50 cm
Oil on linen
35 x 35 cm