Poppy Ellis
Defiant
1 Dec 2021 - 23 Jan 2022
The British artist Poppy Ellis has lived multiple lives. After studying illustration at Newcastle University, Ellis embarked on an acclaimed career in publishing. Whilst working as a senior designer at Macmillan Children’s Books, she masterminded the union of author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler in the creation of modern classic, ‘The Gruffalo’, before co-founding Hope and Greenwood, a traditional-style British sweet shop that spawned its own empire, including close to forty shops in Japan, a BBC television series–and a host of imitators.
Ellis’s third, and most compelling act – as a much sought-after artist – was borne out of the world of interiors. It was whilst briefly running an antiques store in the Sussex harbour town of Rye, that she began to notice artworks were selling faster than she could source them. “One day, I just thought, ‘Oh fuck it. I’ll make some art myself’,” she says. “My husband had been telling me to pick up a paintbrush for decades.” Her first effort, an abstract female portrait, sold instantly–and she’s never looked back. “There’s simply nothing else I want to do,” she says of her artistic evolution. “I now basically live and breathe painting.”
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