Ella Balkwill

        Mobile: 204.481.0310. Email: elbalkwill@gmail.com

Ella Balkwill, originally from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, now resides near Paris, Ontario. She has studied at the Guelph School of Art, Alton Mills Arts Centre, Elora Centre for the Arts and the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, Co Mayo, Ireland.

Ella’s creative roots began as a teenager when she designed, and created, her own clothing.  This evolved into drapery making and eventually became a successful interior decorating business.  Now, reunited with her passion, Ella concentrates on teaching and creating art which speaks to her soul.  She skirted the draw of acrylic painting in search of a more natural, intuitive outlet to her unquenchable curiosity. Her outlet was found in cold wax and oil medium - with much of her inspiration coming from colours in nature.  She is also an avid gardener which expands her creativity into new realms of abstract colour combinations.  Many of her pieces resound with intense saturation of colour and light with ideas taken from her gardens.

She finds herself creating layers, overlapping and scraping, revealing interesting and beautiful combinations of glorious colour and artistic character.  Because of the variety of texture and layers, and the technique of letting previous layers and textures show through the surface, paintings done in this medium are naturally rich in complexity.   Ella creates marks, textures, and shapes, taking the complexity and editing it down until what remains is strictly the essential.  The simplest of compositions sing with underlying intricacy and passion. 

Ella’s body of Abstract Expressionism is created to effect peace and calm, to inspire and heal.  Cold wax and oil medium is enticingly organic, tactile, and invites our touch.