Ellie Merrell MA Fine Art
My work derives from the universality of the image of cartoons, the slapstick nature of cartoon language and how this juxtaposes with nostalgia and sometimes darker elements of our memory. Sculpturally, I work predominately with papier mache, reminiscent of hand-made childhood playfulness reinforcing the idea of cartoon wistfulness with caricature objects and oversized animated animals. The proximity of the surreal or sometimes uncanny can come from the movement of the object, the story it is telling or the opposition it creates due to location or size. My work tends to move or be motorised to emphasise the ‘toy’ nature of the objects.
