Mary Anne Aytoun Ellis

  • My work always evolves from loose, abstract beginnings in which I have no pre-conceived idea or composition, allowing myself to...
    My work always evolves from loose, abstract beginnings in which I have no pre-conceived idea or composition, allowing myself to be guided by the resulting marks and images which begin to emerge. This is my 'way in' to a landscape, where process, materials and subject matter are all emergent and equally dependent on each other, rooted in impression rather than emulation. It is how I tap into a deep-rooted feeling for the landscape which is not only my own but comes from the generations of my family who have farmed and worked on the land.
     
    I am acutely aware of the changing nature of the land as it faces such immense pressures from urbanization and global climate change. But equally I am aware, and always in search of, its unchanging and persistent qualities.
     
  • “Mary Anne’s paintings are made with extraordinary detail of observation and an astonishing intensity – in many ways similar to eighteenth century miniatures and the work of the finest British Artists of the 1970’s such as Graham Sutherland. I am tempted to view her work close up and then step back a few feet away and each time I look I see something new. Artist and critic John Ruskin would have championed Mary Anne just as he did Turner in his time.” – Henry Wemyss
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  • Canopy, 2022 The Queens Green Canopy, Sothebys London Canopy, 2022 The Queens Green Canopy, Sothebys London

    Canopy

    2022 The Queens Green Canopy, Sothebys London

    Throughout 2022 Mary Anne worked on an ambitious project travelling the length and breadth of the United Kingdom to draw a selection of ancient trees chosen by The Queen’s Green Canopy to mark the occasion of Her Late Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

     

    Mary Anne's entire career has centred around the British landscape, its diversity and richness as well as its fragile but vital importance.  She has studied and drawn trees all her life. This collection of paintings represents a hugely ambitious and unique body of work and functions both as a powerful artistic statement and as a record of some of the most precious and extraordinary trees in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Every painting was created in situ and in the studio and represents her intensely personal response to each individual tree.

  • Leporello, 2022 Sotheby's London Leporello, 2022 Sotheby's London Leporello, 2022 Sotheby's London Leporello, 2022 Sotheby's London Leporello, 2022 Sotheby's London

    Leporello

    2022 Sotheby's London

    “This limited edition, tree-marbled leperello book represents an intimate collaboration of art and design, traditional craft, nature and Britain’s royal heritage. Comprising a selection of rare artwork reproductions signed by Mary Anne Aytoun Ellis commissioned to portray the Ancient Woodlands and Trees dedicated to the late Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 to mark the Platinum Jubilee. It is a vibrant legacy, etched for eternity.

    The elegant design mimics the travel souvenir leperellos of the Victorian era, depicting highly detailed panoramic scenes cropped from Mary Anne Aytoun Ellis’ original artwork, revealing a gallery in printed form. Every intricate element is finely curated, from the intensity of the ink to the crackle of the paper, to immerse oneself into an ancient arboretum. This majesty of explorations surpasses the traditional book, with a sculptural drama of immense magnitude emerging from a series of folds.

    At the Sotheby’s exhibition (December 2022), the leperello presented a rare opportunity to compare printed reproductions with the artist’s originals, displayed as a three dimensional object of 4.2 metres (13 feet 9 inches) in length, to be viewed from all angles. The leperello is housed within an exquisitely hand crafted solander box, with Green Colorado Liffey, brass-die foil, lined with Palladium Suedel, silver ribbons, each leperello inset with an original painting by Mary Anne Aytoun Ellis.

    The leperello is headed by a casebound folio that helps preserve the endangered craft of treemarbling, complimented along the spine with Woodland Calf from the Highgrove Estate and 23 karat gold-leaf. The tree pattern is hand-marbled by Trevor Lloyd MBE, one of only two known experts world-wide to practice this rare decorative technique. First used in the late 1770s it became very popular, yet it is challenging to execute well. The pattern is a result of an aqueous solution of chemicals on leather. To shape a tree and its crown of branches.

    The term “leperello” is an eponym from the manservant in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (1778). During the Catalogue Aria, Leperello produces an accordion style list that he unfolds to reveal the “mille e tre” (a thousand and three) mistresses of his master. Serving as a bridge between the scroll and contemporary book, the leperello’s signature characteristic is its ability to open up and expand indefinitely as a three dimensional object. When the leperello is folded, it mirrors the efficient structure of a traditional book, to be enjoyed page by page.

    This expansion and contraction epitomizes the changing forms of our woodlands, as Thomas Carlyle expresses: “when the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.”

     

    Katy Mawhood