Ella Trott

Lives and works in London, UK

Artist statement

My practice is rooted in memory, nostalgia, and the intimate archive of family life. Over the past few years, I have been exploring how private moments of joy, celebration, and togetherness can be transformed into images that resonate far beyond their personal context. I am particularly interested in creating large-scale oil paintings of my family members, taking ordinary moments such as holidays, parties, and posed photographs and elevating them into figures that feel iconic, cinematic, and larger than life. This fascination partly originates from my birthday being on the Fourth of July - growing up, I was captivated by the most hyperbolic, performative versions of American culture, the spectacle of the holiday, and the mythology of the American Dream. This early parasocial fascination has shaped my interest in images of desire, performance, and aspiration, which I now explore through the lens of memory and family. I want these figures to evoke longing, desire, and saudade - the ache for something you may never have experienced or perhaps never existed. At the same time, the work is grounded in memory. I explore the tension between hyper-stylised, billboard-like surfaces and the subtle erosion of memory over time, capturing both glamour and fragility. Working at a large scale allows these intimate images to occupy a monumental space, creating a collision between intimacy and spectacle. As an early-career artist, I want this work to be ambitious, confident, and executed...

Artwork