Conceptual nominee

Fire, not only a common thread that unites humanity but a universal continuity linking modern man to the earliest inhabitants of Britain's woods and forests. 

With deeply symbolic narratives spanning the human and natural world, it brings together the opposing themes of life and death, creation and destruction, love and loss, nature versus culture, and numerous other mythologies and meanings that we ascribe to it. 

The small fires present in these images cast the forest in a warm light, holding back the dark, bringing a sense of safety and comfort not only transforming the forest but temporarily altering it. A man-made fire however must be built and lit, tended and fed. Its mere presence implies the existence of people, and the human narrative remains despite their absence. The viewer is left to weave their own experience into the woodland, invited to enter, to sit down, to be silent and still; to become a part of the wood and for a time to find a place within it.

BIOGRAPHY

Ellie Davies (Born 1976) lives in London and works in the woods and forests of the UK. She gained her MA in Photography from London College of Communication in 2008.

Current exhibitions:

'Stars', a solo exhibition at The Sophie Maree Gallery in The Hague runs from 10 January until 28 February 2015.
A. Galerie in Paris is currently exhibiting Davies' work in 'Outside', a group show which runs from 29 January 2015 until 21 March. The show will then travel to Art Paris, and later in the year to A.Galerie Brussels.

Recent solo exhibitions include Into the Woods at The Richard Young Gallery in London, Come with Me at The Print House Gallery in London, Smoke and Mirrors at 10GS London, and Ellie Davies New Landscape at Bruce Collections, Kiev in Ukraine.

She is represented by A.Galerie Paris, Sophie Maree Gallery in The Netherlands, Brucie Collections in Kiev and Art Gemini in Singapore. Crane Kalman Brighton Gallery exhibit her work at London Art Fairs.