Ellen Frances | June, 2024 | Tönnheim Gallery, Madrid, Spain

C H A O S T H E O R Y

1.618

1.618

x n + 1 = r x n ( 1 − x n )

• •

x n + 1 = r x n ( 1 − x n ) • •

E = mc²

E = mc²

In the summer of 2021 I rented a room, by chance, in the 18th c. home of a Taiwanese artist and ancient geometry scholar. It was there, along the Hudson River, beside a 25 acre friary of The Capuchin Order, that I witnessed a quiet dedication to the study of sacred geometry’s presence in art and nature. Upon my return to New York City that fall, I began to study patterns in music, movement and painting. I discovered Dali’s obsession with  “Nuclear Mysticism”, post WWII. This period saw Dali return to his Roman Catholic roots via the geometric harmonies of religious iconography. His work of this era drew a direct visual correlation to the mathematical and scientific underpinnings of Einstein’s atomic theory –  Thus concluding that the atom, as the basic building block of matter, held spiritual significance which could be visualized precisely via geometry. – Further readings included an examination of W.B. Yeats's affiliation with the secret society; The Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn. In seminal hermetic-inspired works such as "A Vision," (1925) Yeats employs geometric diagrams as conduits for spiritual revelation. Additionally, writings and illustrations authored by Newton and DaVinci (among others) served as vehicles of understanding for a complex mathematical world. It is a world which I am academically unqualified to decipher, but am enthralled by from a mystical and theoretical perspective.  

Rooted in a search for alchemical clarity via the study and practice of unlimited self expression, my work is a combination of automatic writing, sketching, hand-sewing, painting, and theatricality. Often described as visually surreal; the imperfect, classical approach I take is a commentary on the beauty of the human spirit’s presence in craft. It is also a defiant rebellion against present-day artificial generative evolution, which suppresses our innate ability to imagine freely in an increasingly algorithmic, mathematically flattened world.

A R T I S T S T A T E M E N T

© _ // - ™

© _ // - ™

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Ellen Frances is an American multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Her practice merges painting, poetry, movement, photography, sound and design. She has shown at Mana Contemporary (NJ), The Hole Gallery (NY), Volta Art Fair (NY), Anthology Film Archives (NY), Thoor Ballylee (IE), Java Project (BK), and Tönnheim Gallery (ESP).  Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Brooklyn Rail, and Art Observed -- as well as WideWalls, CultBytes and WhiteHot Magazines. – She is a self-taught painter working primarily in oil and watercolor. Her paintings are derived from daily journal entries as contemplation and are frequently paired with hand written poems.  – Her performance art is inspired by ancient Greco-Roman pantomime and 19th c. Ballet d’Action. Each performance incorporates original hand-sewn costumes, choreography, poetry, painted backdrops, masks and original sound compositions. Her live presentations gained attention in the winter of 2023 after Ellen appeared monthly in underground NY salons curated by Beckett Rosset; the namesake of Samuel Beckett, and son of Barney Rosset. In the summer of 2023, Ellen was the first-ever artist in residence at the 16th c. Normandy tower home of Irish author, poet and playwright W.B. Yeats during the centenary of his Nobel Prize win. Ellen appeared in fashion campaigns for the designer Samantha Pleet in early 2024. As an author, she is represented by the Shipman Agency. Her book of written essays, drawings, paintings, and textile work; is expected to be released in 2026. 

Paintings available May 15th via Tönnheim Gallery in person and online

C/ de Miguel Mayor, 1, Carabanchel, 28019 Madrid, Spain | Tönnheim Gallery’s mission is to examine the idea of the painterly, be it also through related media such as photography, sculpture, installations, video, and drawing, in order to understand and to promote the direction of painting and its relevance to contemporary visual culture. The Gallery is owned and operated by Mattias Tönnheim.


Numerical Arrays (2024)

Digital painting over manipulated photograph with graphics

For programming, vectors are an effective way to organize and store objects and object collections in containers for use in machine-learning applications. They're used for various scenarios, such as when supervised and unsupervised learning algorithms are applied to create recommendations.