Infected by Art Book - Volume 12

Ellie Nesbitt is a self-taught, figurative, fantastical, portrait painter, gallery and cover artist working in the digital medium. She currently resides in the Great Lakes lowlands of Ontario, Canada, where she paints in the supine position with her delightful, avian companions. Addled by severe osteoporosis and multiple compression fractures, Ellie uses the digital medium for meditative and expressive release. She paints with a suspended monitor, engaging steadfastly with those who enjoy her creations and follow her journey on social media.

In September 2021, Ellie created FAYBEL to interact with her online audience on Instagram, her main social hub, and, in May 2023, she became a member of the Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory. Ellie will be featured in an upcoming issue of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine as a member of this listing as well as in a full editorial with the periodical Pepper. Her recent work Rhiannon & the Skylark has been long-listed for the Women United Art Prize Digital Art category (final results TBA). 

Ellie’s contemporary portraits are inspired by a collection of unpublished original fairytale and fantasy narratives–surreal tales of which she works to realize in written, visual and musical expression. Each of her paintings feature compelling expressive eyes, finessed with unique floral and scenic motifs; textural brushwork; and fine detail. She enjoys delving into the realms of imaginative realism, surrealism and fantastic art.

Her digital paintings are sensory symphonies and textural delights distilled from acute tactile experiences and melodious memories–extrapolations from her heightened-sensory life on the autism spectrum. 

Ellie’s principal goal is to siphon an aesthetic and essence of studied traditional mediums into the digital medium using textured art surfaces, digital oil and watercolour brushes, dynamic mixing techniques and archival quality giclée printing. She is meticulous with colour accuracy and colorimeter use and paints within a neutral, grey curtained enclosure—a fixed, high CRI room-light installed to persist prevention of any colourcast or unwelcome colour interference. Her preference is to Canson and Hahnemuhle papers with no OBAs (optical brighteners) at peak resolution of 720 dpi, digitally printed on Epson SureColor Printers with her select Canson Certified Lab in Toronto, Canada. Ellie’s actions are made with intent to open up further, future opportunities for gallery affiliation and increase the acceptance of skilled, digital painters in contemporary art exhibitions. To delight collectors, her works are aligned to be showcased as limited-edition prints, embellished with certificates of authenticity and embossed artist seals of approval, or as 1 of 1 digital original archival giclée.

Ellie is the cover artist for Bourbon Penn Issue 28, a zine with prior cover positions allotted to industry veterans, the likes of Ed Binkley and Laura H. Rubin. Her paintings have been featured as inspirational entries for the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize in 2022 and 2023. Since 2022, Ellie’s works have been published in multiple issues and volumes of 365 ART + Magazine, Infected by Art Book, and Marvelous Art Magazine as well as Marvelous Art’s Top 50 Artists to Watch In 2022 & 2023. She was in The Concept Art Association’s first gallery show at Gallery Nucleus in Los Angeles, CA and the Small Works group show (Halloween themed) at Curio Art Gallery in Portugal and online. She sold out of Curio Art Gallery’s first completely digital solo collection, Weird Tales, within two weeks of its online opening in December 2022.

Ellie is currently working on a series of paintings for her original fairytale The Tin Princess. A limited-edition, giclée series from this narrative will be run with Quirky Fox Gallery in New Zealand. Ellie is also initiating a limited-edition, signed and numbered, collection with Art Major Gallery in California, in line to become their first digital artist as well as Quirky Fox's first digital painter to run a limited-edition series. 

In the midst of gallery arrangements and periodical publications, Ellie is upstarting a literary call for artists, a resource for skills progression, industry buzz and artist opportunities, JESSO Magazine. Notable institutions, organizations, award-winning artists and industry professionals have already displayed expressed interest in JESSO, which, between recent and forecasted personal surgeries, will require some time in realizing. At present, Ellie is hyper-focused on launching her own digital works and platform in the gallery setting to help support JESSO's future publication for emerging and inquisitive artists.

Due to her current health circumstance, Ellie is primarily interested in finding further representation via open/limited-edition, archival print series and group exhibition.