Lee Ellis 'Do You Smell That?' Original Available

Artist: Lee Ellis
Title: Do You Smell That?
Medium: Acrylic, Aerosol and Oil on Canvas
Size: 13.75 x 17.75 Inches
Edition: UNIQUE
Price: $2,015

 

Lee Ellis is a Bristol based British multi media artist whose practice thrives on restless experimentation. Born in 1985, he grew up on a diet of comic books, album sleeves and Saturday morning cartoons, influences that still pulse through his bold colour choices and graphic mark making. After studying fine art at university he spent several years in London advertising agencies, learning how to distil complex messages into single powerful images, a skill he now applies to personal work that explores identity, memory and the fragility of human connection. Working across printmaking, painting and collage, Ellis builds layered surfaces that feel simultaneously chaotic and controlled. He begins with loose charcoal sketches, then adds gestural acrylic strokes, screen printed fragments and torn paper, sanding or scraping back areas to reveal ghost images beneath. The result is a visual archaeology where past decisions peek through present marks, echoing the way personal histories linger under daily routines. His palette leans toward hot pinks, cadmium oranges and deep ultramarines, hues that vibrate against raw canvas and create an energetic push pull across each composition.

Portraits emerge from the abstract fields: faces split into geometric planes, eyes duplicated like misprinted photographs, mouths stretched into silent howls or wide grins. These features are never fixed; they shimmer and dissolve, suggesting the fluid nature of self perception in an age of constant digital reflection. Recent series such as Talking in Colour reduce figures to interlocking colour blocks, yet subtle line work hints at bone structure and emotional weight, inviting viewers to project their own narratives onto the fragmented forms.

Commercial clients including Saatchi Art, DegreeArt and Clarendon Fine Art have championed his prints, while solo exhibitions in Bristol and London regularly sell out. Despite growing demand, Ellis continues to hand pull limited editions in his studio, embracing the slight variations that make each sheet unique. Workshops and live painting events allow him to share his process, encouraging participants to embrace mistakes as creative fuel rather than flaws. Whether rendering a six foot canvas or a small monotype, Lee Ellis seeks the fragile moment when order collapses into chaos and something honest emerges, reminding us that identity is never fixed but always in flux, painted and repainted by every experience we encounter.