'SOMETHING PROMISED' Oil on Canvas Board
Dimension: 20" x 20"
Certification of Authenticity: Apricus Art Collection
Signature: Signed by Artist
"Something Promised" by Elea Jane is a complex and enigmatic oil on canvas board, rich with symbolism and visual metaphor. The artist employs a vivid and varied palette to create a scene that is at once fantastical and grounded, blending elements of the natural world with those of the man-made.
At the forefront, we see an introspective figure engaging with a phonograph, a device historically associated with the reproduction of sound and thus, memory and nostalgia. This interaction suggests a thematic exploration of time and recollection. The figure is partially obscured by large, red leaf-like forms that may represent the intrusion of nature or the passage of time, signifying growth, change, or decay.
The surrounding environment is a tapestry of detailed and impressionistic strokes, with a fountain symbolizing purity and a flow of emotions or ideas. The checkered pattern on the balcony introduces notions of duality and decision, reminiscent of a chessboard, indicating strategic thought or the complexity of life's choices.
The statuette poised atop the fountain could be an allusion to classical art, a nod to the past, or a reflection on the human form. The presence of floral motifs throughout the scene injects life and organic continuity, contrasting with the inert objects around.
In the background, the swirling sky, with its impressionistic rendering, conveys movement and a sense of the atmospheric, perhaps reflecting the inner turmoil or serenity of the central figure. There's a sense of impending drama or transition, underscored by the dynamic brushwork and the contrast between light and shadow.
Overall, the composition of "Something Promised" is a dynamic interplay of forms and colors that leads the viewer's eye across the canvas, inviting them to unravel its narrative threads and contemplate the promises—spoken or unspoken—within their own lives.
Choose options
BIOGRAPHY
Elea Jane is a self-taught artist currently based in Oxford. Having been unsettled from her home country and separated from her father as a child, her art often oscillates between atmospheres of home and horizon: the shadows that settle and flicker around comfort in the former, and the vertiginous void of swelling euphoria in latter. Her art focuses on the emergence of sensation and symbol which informs the complexity of subjectivity - whether through her portraits, which play with existing line and colour to bring out abstract forms speaking expressions beyond what’s prefigured and easily conceivable - or through her series of figurative dreamscapes reminiscent of fairy tales and surrealist art, laden with overtly symbolic, conflicting imagery and inspired by the spirit of collage and graffiti, mapping out the subject’s mind in the influx of information of its surroundings.
Having recently emerged from a years-long abusive relationship, Elea also uses the work as a reappropriation of self and sexuality. The trauma suffered from the abuse left the artist with severe problems with speech; the language constructed through her art, that private space that fluctuates between reality and imagination, through sensation, allowed her to take back control of her own voice. She has exhibited in Paris, has completed dozens of portrait commissions since she began painting three years ago, and her portraits are featured in the interview book Follow for Now vol. 2. by Roy Christopher. She lives in the Chilterns with her sister and her cat, Mia.