What is a Forest? Is it the trees or the space that exists between them?

These images in this series explore the nature and meaning of ‘Forest’ by considering the experience of standing alone in the woods; the eerie and captivating sensation that time has slowed down and that the forest and everything within it exists in a different state.

Come with Me was made in the New Forest in the South of England, where Davies grew up. Each piece is constructed within the forest, and the physicality and labor of the making process is central to the work. The introduction of artificial materials to the woodland floor reflects the ‘constructed’ nature of landscape, with particular reference to the long tradition of landscape painting and its role in the creation of meaning and myth making.   The pathways are made from materials such as paint, powder, wool and paper, which reference traditional craft processes. Each piece follows the most natural line of movement through the space tracing animal paths, the sweep of the eye, or the curve of the land. The process of making is spontaneous and solitary.

The color, shape and material of each pathway draw on and mirror the landscape around it. These pathways delicately and temporarily trace a trajectory through the space, allowing the artist to inscribe and locate herself within the landscape in order to develop a richer personal interaction within the woodland. These trajectories are imposed and over-laid on the forest floor, transforming the natural world into an object as well as a photographic image, an inscribed space which questions the stability of ‘nature’ and landscape’ as concepts, and ask the viewer to consider how their own identity is shaped by the landscapes they live in, and the ways in which they utilize these spaces.

Artist Statement

×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.

The series Seascapes began as the result of climate change; rising sea levels and frequent extreme weather events which have lead to more serious flooding worldwide.
In the winter of 2019/2020 the New Forest in the South of England where the artist grew up, experienced a succession of storms which generated extensive flooding. Vast areas of farmland and heathland lay under sheets of water for many consecutive weeks and areas of woodland were submerged during this period. It was there and during this time that Ellie Davies began to create this series of images.
The series speaks of change, loss of control and the unknown. In some images the water that flows across dusk-darkened woodlands is ruptured by rolling currents, rushing inland. In others the forest is virtually obscured by bubbling water.However alluring, this sparkling insurgency is altogether darker and more dangerous; reflected light captured from the surface of the sea now appears in forest spaces where it was never meant to be.