Ellen Lesperance
Ellen Lesperance’s work pays tribute to direct action campaigns and feminist activism. Lesperance's paintings are based on knit garments worn by women involved in protests, sit-ins, demonstrations, and civil disobedience. She meticulously paints the patterns of these “knitted messages,” that function much like other forms of creative direct action such as picket signs, banners, street theater, body painting, and costumes. Pattern, shape, and symmetry emerge in the artist's highly detailed compositions that merge abstraction and figuration. By translating and transforming such source material into something abstract and universal, the works speak to participation and protest as being not radical, but essential and personal. They also create a political lineage, capturing the potential of past events to inspire future action through translated and coded symbols.
Her work has been presented in solo and two-person exhibitions at Seattle Art Museum, Samson Projects in Boston, and PS122 in New York. She has participated in group exhibitions at institutions such as the Drawing Center in New York, Ashland Art Museum, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. The artist has received grants and awards from the Robert …
Ellen Lesperance’s work pays tribute to direct action campaigns and feminist activism. Lesperance's paintings are based on knit garments worn by women involved in protests, sit-ins, demonstrations, and civil disobedience. She meticulously paints the patterns of these “knitted messages,” that function much like other forms of creative direct action such as picket signs, banners, street theater, body painting, and costumes. Pattern, shape, and symmetry emerge in the artist's highly detailed compositions that merge abstraction and figuration. By translating and transforming such source material into something abstract and universal, the works speak to participation and protest as being not radical, but essential and personal. They also create a political lineage, capturing the potential of past events to inspire future action through translated and coded symbols.
Her work has been presented in solo and two-person exhibitions at Seattle Art Museum, Samson Projects in Boston, and PS122 in New York. She has participated in group exhibitions at institutions such as the Drawing Center in New York, Ashland Art Museum, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. The artist has received grants and awards from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Art Matters, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and the Ford Family Foundation.
Courtesy of Adams and Ollman
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY
Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, OR
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA
Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, CA
Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR
