Ellie Davies

Career

Born in England in 1976, Ellie Davies has made her love of forests the cen­tral theme of her artis­tic prac­tice. Born in the New Forest region, Ellie has con­tin­u­ally explored wood­lands, from her native New Forest to Fontainebleau in France. These jour­neys are not only dri­ven by plea­sure, but also by a search for inspi­ra­tion and the cre­ation of works that are as poetic as they are mysterious. 

Visual Style

Passionate about sculp­ture dur­ing her teenage years, the artist grad­u­ally turned toward pho­tog­ra­phy. “After a frus­trat­ing year at Art Foundation, I took a dark­room course and real­ized that I could have a cre­ative life with­out hav­ing to be alone. It was a rev­e­la­tion.” She began her career as a pho­tog­ra­pher with self-​portrait projects. “I used myself as a model so I could remain inde­pen­dent,” she explains. Initially focused pri­mar­ily on por­trai­ture and com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­phy, Ellie Davies grad­u­ally returned to her first love: the forest. 

Major Series and Works

The true turn­ing point in her artis­tic career came when she returned to the New Forest. Fascinated by the power of nature, Ellie redis­cov­ered inspi­ra­tion rooted in her child­hood: fairy tales.
At the cen­ter of these tales, myths, and leg­ends, the for­est has always fas­ci­nated human­ity. It is a space that may appear ordi­nary yet con­tin­ues to inspire fan­tasy, enchant­ment, and even our deep­est fears. For Ellie, forests are never neu­tral spaces because they are always per­ceived through the fil­ter of per­sonal expe­ri­ence.
Her work con­sists of recre­at­ing, through pho­tog­ra­phy, mag­i­cal atmos­pheres wor­thy of the great­est fan­tasy worlds. These envi­ron­ments chal­lenge human per­cep­tion by trans­form­ing the appar­ent still­ness of nature. A gen­uine sense of dis­ori­en­ta­tion emerges from her work. The British artist trans­forms a “sim­ple” for­est into cap­ti­vat­ing scenes where imag­i­na­tion takes control. 

Recognition

Ellie Davies’ work can be found in numer­ous pri­vate col­lec­tions through­out the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe, South Korea, Hong Kong, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Reading the Work

Ellie Davies’ work finds its bal­ance in a poetic, mys­te­ri­ous, and immer­sive uni­verse where nature becomes both a men­tal space and a land­scape. It stands out through an imme­di­ately rec­og­niz­able atmos­phere sit­u­ated between land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy, artis­tic inter­ven­tion, and eco­log­i­cal imag­i­na­tion. Her pho­tographs ben­e­fit from a close read­ing atten­tive to nuance: a com­po­si­tional detail, a par­tic­u­lar dis­tance main­tained with the sub­ject, a qual­ity of light, or a tex­ture often reveals their depth.