Bio

James Ellis is an abstract artist and musician based in the UK. Self-taught, he developed his artistic practice in parallel to his travels around the world as a digital nomad. It was during these years of experimentation that he adopted the collage technique as his primary medium of choice.

Growing up in the French countryside, nature was something of a haven to James. After moving to the city to study Fashion Design in Paris, he found the urge to develop a visual language that would not just represent nature, but recreate its feeling. It was through Henri Matisse and Jean Arp's work that he found the inspiration and techniques to emulate the spontaneity, balance and beauty of the natural world - developing a visual practice built from incidental, yet meticulously balanced shapes and colours.

His artworks have been selected for exhibition around the UK at galleries and events including Paper Festival in Manchester and The NewBridge Project in Gateshead. He was awarded an artist development grant by The Collection and Usher Gallery and has been featured in Contemporary Visual Arts Network’s publication.

His work has now evolved to encompass a wider range of mediums and themes. His recent process, combining analogue collage and digital paintings, is the basis of his new FACE series exploring society’s new challenges around human interaction, physicality and artificial intelligence.