Ella McVeigh

Ella McVeigh’s paintings and drawings are webbed with art history, the role of nature in art-making and the possibilities and meanings of abstract painting today. Starting primarily from found imagery and objects, McVeigh explores painting as a mental performance of visual decision-making. Whereby these images from her personal archive, ranging from studio shots of flower arrangements to encyclopedias on minerals and geology, are the trigger of an array of mental connections to other images and experiences.

McVeigh’s purely abstract work is a persisting interrogation of line, colour and form through paintings and drawings that capture in great detail the complexities of looking at images and objects, while also eluding any efforts to be read as stories. Her works transcend conventional meaning or representation and embrace pure abstraction, blurring the boundaries between the two-dimensional surface of the canvas and the illusion of three-dimensional images rendered within. Somatic gestures and bold mark-making, ideas of spatiality and depth are conveyed in a symphony of colours and contrast of light and dark, further expanding the possibilities of abstraction in  painting.

Ella McVeigh (b. 1992 in London, UK) graduated in 2020 with an MA in Painting from The Royal College Of Art. Recent exhibitions include Solid Air, Opdahl, Oslo (2024, solo); On Paper, Newchild, online (2024); Art Brussels, Newchild, Brussels (2024); Beyond Boundaries, Guts Gallery, London (2024); Nouvelle Vague, LBF Contemporary, London (2023); Once, Then, Gone, Newchild, Antwerp (2023); Art Brussels, Newchild, Brussels (2023); Art Antwerp, Newchild, Antwerp (2022); ARTBO, Bogota, Colombia (2022); Each Glance Branching, Newchild, Antwerp (2021, solo); Seven Sisters, Chadwell Award, London (2021, solo); Wild Blue Yonder, Newchild, Antwerp (2021); and Tomorrow: London, White Cube, London (2020). McVeigh is a recipient of the Chadwell Award (2020). Her work is part of the University of the Arts London Art Collection. She lives and works in London.