Elise Brand (b. 1992) is an Australian painter living and working in London, UK. She received her BFA in Painting from Monash University school of Art, Design and Architecture (Melbourne, AUS).
Working in oils, her paintings depict tightly cropped fragments of the human body, often hand gestures, which are rendered with meticulous care and detail onto small panels and canvas. Elements are often hidden by way of chiaroscuro, and there is a vagueness of context through extreme cropping that suggests to viewers that they’re observing something intimate to the artist herself. There is a ritualistic quality to the works and their subjects that hint to Elise’s hunt for truth & meaning amongst memories. Just as a song loops in our heads until we can memorise all the lyrics, Elise paints looping memories in order to set herself free of them. The resulting work becomes a form of self-portraiture, where the viewer is invited to observe these intimate thoughts & vulnerabilities, connect with them and, perhaps, to revisit their own.
Solo exhibitions
2025 tool, symbol, weapon…mouth (forthcoming)
Shug Gallery, Norwich, UK
Group exhibitions
2024 The Life We’ve Shared
Side Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
Collections
Private collection, San Francisco, USA
Private collection, Kent, UK
Private collection,London, UK
Private collections, Melbourne, Aus
Private collection, Sydney, Aus
Press & Publications
Openhouse, ‘Order, play and chaos’, April 2024