Ellen Gallagher facts for kids

Ellen Gallagher (born December 16, 1965) is a famous American artist. She creates amazing artworks using painting, drawings, films, and videos. Her art has been shown in many museums and galleries around the world. Ellen Gallagher often explores ideas about identity and how society sees people in her art. She combines different styles to make her unique pieces.

About Ellen Gallagher's Early Life and School

Ellen Gallagher was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 16, 1965. Her father was from Cape Verde (an island nation in Africa), and her mother was Irish American. Her mother worked hard, and her father was a professional boxer.

Ellen went to a special school called Moses Brown School in Rhode Island. When she was sixteen, she started studying writing at Oberlin College in Ohio. She didn't finish her studies there. Instead, she joined a carpenters' union in Seattle. Before becoming an artist, Ellen also worked as a commercial fisherman in Alaska and Maine.

In 1989, she attended Studio 70 in Kentucky. Later, in 1992, she earned a degree in fine arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She continued her art education in 1993 at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

Ellen Gallagher's Art Career

Ellen Gallagher became well-known as an artist in 1995. Before her big show at Gagosian, she had solo exhibitions at Mary Boone in New York and Anthony D'Offay in London. For her first solo show in New York, she chose Mary Boone's gallery because she felt it would let the artistic qualities of her work stand out.

What Kind of Art Does Ellen Gallagher Make?

Ellen Gallagher, Wiglette from DeLuxe (2004–2005)

Ellen Gallagher is known for her abstract paintings and mixed-media art. She often creates minimalist pieces that tell stories. She gets ideas from artists like Agnes Martin and writers like Gertrude Stein.

Many of Gallagher's artworks use old advertisements from magazines like Ebony and Sepia, which focused on African American communities. She often changes these ads in creative ways, like in her DeLuxe series. Her most famous works are large collages made from many magazine pieces arranged in a grid. Examples include eXelento (2004), Afrylic (2004), and DeLuxe (2005).

The DeLuxe series shows how many different art methods Gallagher uses. She combined techniques like photogravure (a type of printing), digital printing, and oils to add texture. She also used new technologies to create many layers in her art. Each piece in this series can have over 60 prints, using methods like spit-bite, collage, cutting, scratching, silkscreen, and offset lithography. She even glues drawings from notebook paper onto her canvases to create interesting surfaces.

Gallagher's art combines elements from three different art movements:

• Abstract Expressionism: This style focuses on expressing feelings through abstract forms.
• Minimalism: This style uses simple shapes and colors.
• Pop Art: This style uses images from popular culture, like ads and comic books.

Even though she doesn't call her work one specific style, people describe it as unique and interesting. She blends these different styles to create detailed and one-of-a-kind artworks.

Exploring Identity and History in Her Art

When Ellen Gallagher was studying art, she was influenced by the Darkroom Collective, a group of poets. This group helped her explore her talent and connect her experiences as an African American woman to her art. One of her first art shows was at the Dark Room in 1989.

Themes about race and identity often appear in Gallagher's work. She uses symbols, codes, and repeated images. For example, she sometimes uses images that refer to old Black minstrel shows. She also uses these symbols in her collage pieces, inspired by the lined yellow paper kids use in school.

Gallagher also uses certain characters repeatedly, like a nurse or a "Pegleg" character. In her Wiglette from DeLuxe series (2004–2005), she collected old beauty ads from the 1930s to the 1970s that were made for Black American women. Through this art, she explores how identity, race, and culture connect. She said that the "wig ladies" in her art are like "fugitives" freed from old magazines.

Her art often combines formal elements, like grid lines or ruled paper, with images that show how society creates ideas about race. She also uses golden colors to represent different racial groups in society.

Ellen Gallagher is known for using materials in new ways. For example, she created a special type of scrimshaw (a traditional art form of carving) by carving images into thick sheets of watercolor paper and drawing with ink, watercolor, and pencil.

Since 2001, she has been working on a series called Watery Ecstatic. These works include paintings, sculptures, and animations that show sea life using Afrofuturism ideas. Gallagher creates different sea creatures to represent the ancestors of enslaved people who died during the Atlantic slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean. These creatures come from a mythical underwater world called Drexciya, imagined by a music group from Detroit. Gallagher explained that carving these pieces is like the scrimshaw sailors did, which helped them feel in control in the vast ocean.

In some of her early pieces, she painted and drew on sheets of penmanship paper (ruled paper for handwriting practice) that she glued onto canvas. She chose this paper because it felt like a "neutral surface" that could show any mark, which she saw as a way to communicate freedom. While some of her older work was seen as very focused on race, her newer art uses less obvious racial images to make viewers think more deeply.

Ellen Gallagher's work was shown at important art events like the Whitney Biennial in 1995 and the Venice Biennale in 2003. Artist Chuck Close even created a portrait of her in 2009. Today, Ellen Gallagher's art is represented by major galleries like Gagosian Gallery and Hauser & Wirth. She lives and works in New York City and Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Awards and Honors

Ellen Gallagher has received many awards for her amazing art, including:

• Ann Gund Scholarship, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1993)
• Traveling Scholar Award, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1993)
• Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Fellow (1995)
• MacDowell Colony (1996)
• Joan Mitchell Fellowship (1997)
• American Academy Award in Art (2000)
• Medal of Honor, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2001)
• Elected Honorary Royal Academician (HonRA) (2021)

Where Her Art Has Been Shown (Selected Exhibitions)

Ellen Gallagher's art has been shown in solo exhibitions at many important places, such as:

• Drawing Center, New York City, Preserve (2001)
• Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston USA, "Watery Ecstatic" (2001)

Where You Can Find Her Art (Collections)

Gallagher's art is part of the permanent collections in many museums and galleries, including:

• Addison Gallery of American Art
• Goetz Collection
• Hamburger Bahnhof
• Studio Museum in Harlem
• Walker Art Center
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
• Moderna Museet
• Sammlung Goetz
• Centre Georges Pompidou

Some specific artworks and where they are located include:

See also

In Spanish: Ellen Gallagher para niños